I've been thinking a lot more about death than usual. A couple of weeks ago something busted in the vent to the dryer in my house and took up residence in my basement amongst my belongings. I couldn't locate it or even tell what it was for days, but kept finding its nuggets as well as trails of shredded blankets, cardboard boxes, and electrical wires (it had a REAL taste for ethernet cables in case you're wondering) just about everywhere. Then one day, the evisceration of my belongings ceased, and a few days after that, I found, by smell, the carcass of a rabbit in one of the storage areas. It had evidently starved to death, or died of thirst, something... I only wish I had found it sooner because by the time I came upon it, the poor dead varmint was in repose on a bed of writhing maggots- sections of its flank having already collapsed inward into black troughs out of which a runnel of wiggling things aimlessly oozed. If I had been able to spot and catch the little scamp earlier, I could have released it and saved it from this fate- alas, its natural skittishness and the floor plan of my basement conspired to turn it into a forensics challenge. This event has unexpectedly led me to wonder what kind of rut I've designed for myself, and it is leading me to a place I'd rather not be several years down the trail from today, a trap of my own making with no hope of pivoting course. The unfortunate reality is that you can't know if you're doing something stupid, so long as you're following your inclinations, which, like the rabbit that made my home its tomb, means one's best instincts (seeking shelter, hiding from larger animals... chewing on electrical wiring for sustenance) become the surest route to self-disposal. I can't say honestly that there are any habits I indulge that are obvious preludes to doom, but it's hard to shake the ambient anxiety all the same. Someone whose instincts seem spot on to me at the moment though is the Bronx-based black metal project Abriction. Her latest LP
Forbidden Bounds is aiding in the ebb of these directionless fears that have swept over me recently by lending me the benefit of its biting catharsis, as it paints a portrait of reality far bleaker than the one I currently inhabit. The album is a meditation on the paralytic psychic-static of loneliness, the gulf in consciousness between souls (even presumably close ones), and the tendency of life to be eaten by ash as easily as a cigarette is consumed by its ember- classic bitter, neverending winter, and cold night for forlorn spirits type material. It's an impressive solo black metal project and a resoundingly piquant effort that goes well beyond the typical blackened void-inhaling drone and d-beat pummel that typifies endeavors of this sort. It seems tempting to silo Meredith Salvatori's (that is, the singular woman behind Abriction) work into the "blackgaze" camp* due to the project's atmospherically dense and morosely melodic tendencies, but the riffage, direful gashes of groove and scaths of disjointed rhythm displayed on
Forbidden Bounds appear to have as much pedigree in pop-punk, trip-hop, deathcore, nu-metal and video game OSTs as they do in relation to anything Alcest or Bosse-de-Nage have given spiteful form to over the course of their distinctive careers. The whole and inseparable integration of disparate but counterposing trains of angst-animated euphony are so smooth and effortless here that even describing them as chimeric would be misleading, as their synthesis is so complete that the only source of dissonance they exhibit is in the overwhelming force of alienation their combined form gives expression to- it is less a manticore-type situation and more a representation of a member of the mink tribe in union as human and beast all in the same... and under the influence of a full moon, naturally. The best comparison by example that is raised by Abriction's efforts on this record is actually not a metal project at all, but the hyperpop of underscores, and similarly oriented artists, who playfully arrange familiar yet categorically distinct templates to fashion their masterworks; in this way Abriction treats all genres and past modes of expression as a kind of raw clay from which she scrapes and sculpts to suit her vision and impress her intention upon, molding these sounds to the bleak, malignant curvature of her mind. As of this writing, there seems to be a slow consciousness building amongst fans of Abriction's lengthy and growing discography that her 2024 LP
Banshee is the most preferable articulation of all her variable permutations, but this harder-landing, teeth-baring, and less atmospherically-soluble form found on
Forbidden Bounds is pressing the frontier of her potential in an even more fruitful and darkly splendid direction and I hope to see it continue. Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go leave some crackers on the floor of my basement so that no one else inadvertently starves down there, and then shoot my therapist a check-in email to see if we can't get something on the books for next week.
* Because apparently the only unorthodox black metal band anyone is aware of anymore is Deafheaven, so everything becomes "blackgaze" if it tends towards complex shades of moodiness rather than outright nihilism these days.
