Album Review: I Am Abomination - 'Let The Future Tell The Truth'

8 December 2012 | 8:29 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Protest The Hero after a lobotomy.

I Am Abomination’s carrying monkier "Progressive Post-Hardcore" is immediately drawing. Considering the highlight of this listener’s adolescence was hugging Geoff Rickly from Thursday, this tags seems up a favourable alley. While perhaps mislabeled, it certainly comes as a surprise that this band isn't more exposed than they are. There is most definitely an audience - though I confess, upon listening, I do not make up part of it.

The band has been kicking since 2007 - "Five years under the radar," as they so eloquently phrase it on their Facebook. While their Facebook ‘likes’ are immodest, the band seems to not have broken through into major exposure, for the most part.

This may be in part to the esoteric nature of their sound - labeled as "Progressive Post-Hardcore", what they play is really an eclectic mix of heavy rhythm guitars reminiscent of Xibalba and dare we say, the dreaded djent, interspersed with the progressive grandeur and lead guitar gymnastics of Protest The Hero.

The band's technical prowess is nothing to scoff at though. However, the djent influence in the guitar work is sure to divide the audience - it's most notable on the first track. The combination of djent-influenced backing with melodic vocals has been done before - and arguably to death lately, although not to much commercial success. ‘Contend and Amend’ embodies this, and despite the untold potential, like the rest of the album, it's just a little bit on the boring side.

By ‘Retainer Sacrifice’, the album has regressed into whatever the kids were calling post-hardcore midway through the last decade, but with more sweep picking. Is that supposedly that's what the kids are calling "progressive" nowadays?

The rest of the album is not any more noteworthy ... it seems to be a strange conglomerate of the kitsch tendencies of the last decade's commercial rock along with a pointed nod to Protest The Hero.

Regardless of genre labelling, this is a mediocre album. I Am Abomination's technical ability is impressive, but their songwriting does not match. The band has no end of potential, but the album just went by in a blur. 
However, if you like Protest The Hero and all your songs sounding the same, by all means check out I Am Abomination. 

1. Contend and Amend
2. The Demons of Axel Caisin
3. Retainer Sacrifice
4. To Rebuild
5. Since 1848
6. Hangin' On
7. Fire-Eater
8. One False Step
9. Ninety Nine
10. Persistance in Existance