Artist – Lahmia
Album – Into the Abyss
Label – Bakerteam Records
Year – 2012

1. Drag me to Hell
2. Nightfall
3. Silent through the Screaming Crowd
4. The Tunnel
5. Into the Abyss
6. Glass Eyed Child
7. Grinding Dreams
8. Strength from my Wounds
9. My Crown
10. Ab Aeterno

From the haunting intro of the first track ‘Drag me to Hell’ on the new album from ‘Lahmia’ you are given a glance of why this band have been named as extreme metallers and why they completely control the genres; with switches between good old Metal, Thrash and Black metal with the most bone chilling anthem riffs right through to excellent lead sections, and vocal sections to keep that head of yours moving. Add to that the strangest intros with the oddest outro’s like ‘Drag me to Hell’ with the one of the most obscure endings I have ever bared witness to. Then take a look at ‘Nightfall’ and you immediately fall for the hypnotic progressive sections of this track before the guitar solo pulls you back into reality. Going from slow sections like that in ‘Silent Through the Screaming Crowd’ with the almost Iron Maiden-esqe build up into the extreme solo section, then to that of ‘Glass Eyed Child’ with its almost Orchestral intro to the pure metal of the rest of the album is immense.

Heavy influences of ‘God Forbid’, ‘Testament’, ‘Arch Enemy’, ‘Megadeth-esqe’, and ‘System of a Down’ can be heard throughout this album, however Lahmia have proved that with all these great influences you can still be the master of your own game and sound.

‘Into the Abyss’ has found itself a new home on my mp3 player where it will live for many years to come.

Metal at its best!

Reviewed by Dylan Raine