Ab Imo Pectore

Ab Imo Pectore - The Dissociative Path
Debemur-Morti Productions, 2012
Genre: Black Metal

1. Shearers of God
2. Mother of Mothers
3. Mass Grave Emanations
4. Space Devouring Space
5. Sulphur Garden
6. A Boundless Dispersion










I picked this up out of sheer curiosity.  I was unaware that Debemure-Morti ever put out any tape releases, never mind a demo tape at that!  But here we have the first demo tape from Ab Imo Pectore, a band coming out of Portugal and playing a sort of strange form of Black Metal.  As usual with a Debemur-Morti release things are done at a very high quality with regards to packaging.  This naturally comes on a professionally pressed booklet and tape, which is limited to 100 copies.

Musically this project is a little odd, but it has its moments.  Basically if Ved Buens Ende ("Written in Waters" era) hung around with Deathspell Omega (modern era) and Blut Aus Nord you'd basically get Ab Imo Pectore.  The real question becomes: "how well does this combination work?"  In my opinion it didn't really win me over in the end.  I can see why it caught Debemur-Morti's attention and it does have a slightly different kind of avantgarde feel at times, but it's not a combination that really resonated well for me.  At times they do some great stuff like one of the ending riffs in "Shearers of God", which is also a great song title!  I think part of the problem is the blending isn't as seamless as it should be.  I get the impression that a lot of it is broken up in the "this is the Ved Buens Ende part" so they use the appropriate "Written in Waters" vocal performance, then they have the Deathspell Omega part and use the necessary harsh vocals and so on.  I think it is an interesting idea to blend these things together and maybe they could work very well, but I don't think I'm fully hearing it on this demo.

The whole art and aesthetics of the album are extremely well done.  I even like a lot of the lyrics.  They have that sort of rustic and occult feel, which fits with the overall production of the music.  The recording quality is a little harsher than one might expect from a Debemur-Morti release, but this is a demo after all.  I think Ab Imo Pectore are off to a decent start and it might be a little while before their full concept really makes it to fruition.  For now we have "Shearers of God," which was my favorite track on this demo.