It is the year 2014, and the incredulous British masters ORANGE GOBLIN have created a followup to 2012's "A Eulogy For The Damned". Thank the dark lord for what we are to receive; "Back From The Abyss" could well be 'the' ORANGE GOBLIN album, seemingly combining all of their influences and sounds over their 18-year career into 12 tracks.

It wouldn't be a GOBLIN album without a SABBATHian gigaweight in the form of "Sabbath Hex", title-track pun intended or not. The first of many nods to the band's wide array of inspirations, 5 solid, grooving, headwrenching minutes of classic, Heavy Metal spill over in unadulterated, raw, dirty, ethanol-drenched hysteria. Newcomers to the band may be thinking, "Man, I hope this isn't another 40 minutes of homogenised Stoner Rock"; this album is damn-near chock-full of brazen Stoner sounds, but 'homogenised' is far from it. Because after the pounding first track, "Übermensch" pulls out a splendid blend of powerful, dramatic, lurching riffs tickled by toppings of guitar riffs that weave heaviness and melody. The track is unique in that it doesn't sit still; it's rhythm and pace is all over the place, breaks jinks and jumps in the riffs like a tumble down a jagged cliff.

ORANGE GOBLIN'S refusal to musically sit in one place is present in tracks like "Heavy Lies the Crown", which brings things down a notch, in both thickness and tempo. Cymbals dithered with plentiful reverb shelter the track, sounding like a constant backdrop of rainfall on the veritable swamp of a track, the intro especially, which also draws in the listener with a delicious texture of bluesy guitar licks and inescapably groovy bass riffs. The elements coalesce into a track that is one of the catchiest and best on the album, the lyrics poetic and provoking, yet darkly comical. Metallic heavyweights like "Mythical Knives" and "The Abyss", just when I thought the album couldn't get wilder, the album closes on an unexpectedly gloomy note, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Perhaps one of the slowest tracks they've ever written, it is certainly the most slow-paced, downtrodden, muddy creation found on this record.

This album could well be the band's best work to date, right up there with CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's phenomenal "IX", two of this year's highest caliber releases.