ninehertz

Abissi, a quartet from Milan, have previously aimed to amalgamate a compound of genres into a singular vision – primarily in the stoner rock and psychedelic worlds, yet touching upon grunge, math rock and more. Their new album Paramagia, out on the Argonauta label, seeks to refine that approach.

There is more heft in the opening riff than I was immediately expecting, providing a weight-burdened energy that places the first song at the doom end of stoner rock. The following Pizzo is much more upbeat, a restless punk jumpiness which channels an old Italian stoner band by the name of El Thule. That it then goes bulkier once more, sounding like a cross between the Rise Above alumni sHeavy and one of the many modern occult doom bands (such as Sonic Demon) showcases how they are adamant in their use of cross-genre inputs.

The second half of the album has a touch of grunge increasingly bearing its head, whilst Kyuss inflections turn latter to clear Queens of the Stone Age influences, of the Rated R era. The punk-edged stoner rock returns too on Cemento, before it ends with a nice and mature instrumental.

Abissi risk a lack of fluency by moving from style-to-style track-to-track, even if the changes may not be as stark as I have made them sound. They largely – but not completely – avoid this trap, instead creating a novel and interesting, varied stoner rock album with a bright outlook.