ABHORRENT EXPANSE is a Death Metal band from Chicago, Illinois. Their music is a tough one to really categorize, as the band themselves utilize a variety of sounds to compose their songs. They are said to be heavily jazz and blues orientated and use a lot of technical and creative work to set up their tracks. There can be a lot of good song structures created by introducing these into the idea of Death Metal, as they heavily influenced the genre of heavy music, and it makes this album interesting to check out.

The album comes alive with the track "Cloak Of Ancients" and is really just sporadic guitar played over top of feedback, with some background cymbals. Really not much going on here to talk about. "Annihilation Operators" kicks right into effect with a demonic growl and pounding drums that eventually takes on some organ until it succumbs to a metal riff. The vocals are just growls and wails that carry no substance. As the drums calm themselves down the music does improve as you can acknowledge what is coming through the headphones and are treated to a decent solo. While the drums are chaotic, there is rhyme or reason to the song that catches my attention. You catch a taste of some improvisational jazz playing with the track "Empirical Languages" but that is basically the song in a nutshell as the band just jams through this jazzy track, as if you are going for a walk without knowing where you are going and what you are trying to accomplish by going.

"Frost Suffocation" opens with a rumbling bass that becomes a snazzy little bass and guitar lick. The song then becomes a mangled mess of frantic playing and then jumps back into the jazz bass and so on from there. Taking a mangled PINK FLOYD approach at times. "Path Of Extremal Action" is a pieced together drum track that sounds as if it was made up on the spot and includes various sounds at different pitches placed around the drum notes. At this point guys, I can't lie, I am not digging this. The track "Against The Churning Void, Apparitions Of A Lost And Glorious Starscape" has a magical and trippy flow to it but is once again battling with feedback in an attempt to create more layers of sound to it. The last track of the album "Arcturian Nano Diamonds From A Tranquil Abyss" is over fourteen minutes of a building effect of sound with screeching guitar and some creative playing. There are once again some random drum notes thrown in and it does explode for a short period into blast beats if you are willing to wait it out. The song ends with a few minutes of feedback.

This really did nothing for me. To me I found myself waiting for something that just never came and lost interest very quickly. The riffs are placed randomly around, and most of the time are played on top of feedback or just random noise that takes away the attention of the listener. Try this one for yourselves and see if you can take anything from it, but I just simply cannot.