When creating a band and writing songs, sometimes you don't need anything fancy like complex time signatures, or labyrinthine lyrics or even a message that serves some greater purpose. Sometimes you just need to plug an instrument into an amp, channel every ounce of hatred and fury you were previously unaware of and give it Hell. ABYTHIC does what they do because some metal bands just wanna watch your ears bleed. ABYTHIC can and does own the place when playing Beneath Ancient Portals thanks to the ground-leveling tempo and Leimy's vocals, whose growls are so goddamn inhuman, I'm not convinced that he isn't part werewolf.

ABYTHIC draws out your sentence with relish in "Prelude to Obscurity" then tosses you headlong into a pit of bilious riffs and churning, toxic bass in "Purulent Phantasm". We are two tracks in, and ABYTHIC sees that we are tossed into an acid bath of noise. What a rush! The title track "Beneath Ancient Portals (The Gate of Ganzir)" is just as ungodly as the rest of the album, it's slow, grinding you down to meat paste between two grinding stones. ABYTHIC loves to stretch the torment out for as long as they can. You are in their torture dungeon, after all, so, their rules. They can go as slow as they want. "Afterwards Behind Beyond" is a trip to more bubbling acid pits spewing corrosive fretwork. ABYTHIC doesn't leave anyone standing when they are through with their sadistic pleasure.

ABYTHIC harkens back to the 90's era of Death Metal; the earlier times of MORBID ANGEL and BOLT THROWER. ABYTHIC even sounds like a rawer version of ROTTING CHRIST at times. Just soul-crushing doom and gloom that absorbs any trace of light in its sight. I'm sure there are worse ways to abandon your hope.