Hailing from Germany, the Progressive Death Metal outlet STEORRAH recently released their third full-length, "The Altstadt Abyss".  Full of jazzy passages and groovy riffs, this album is a musical journey. To start, this is basically your typical Progressive Death Metal. It draws a lot of influence from Progressive Rock like YES and RUSH while still sounding like CYNIC, ATHEIST, or DEATH. Like ATHEIST, there is plenty of Jazz influence on this album. In fact, there are points where it might as well just be a Jazz album, specifically on "Wolves & Seagulls".

At the times where this album is Metal, it is very heavy and progressive. A notably heavy riff comes around two minutes into "Sea Foam Empyrean." This riff isn't transitioned into very well, but the execution of the riff itself makes up for that. It's groovy, has a great flow, and it is heavier than most of what is presented on the album.

For the most part, the songs on this album are mostly about five to nine minutes long, with a few outliers. Progressive Metal usually has long compositions, so this is expected, and they are all written fairly well. The longest song on here, "Where My Vessel Dwells," at 11 minutes long, has a nice structure and doesn't ever get tiring. The song has a very large arsenal of sounds, making the song unpredictable and fun to listen to. "Sea Foam Empyrean," at seven minutes, also has a great structure with a lot of diversity.

One thing that I find to be a problem with this album is that the first few songs are riff-heavy, while the rest is more focused on atmosphere and ambiance. While this is okay because it's just how the album flows, it does make the listener want more riffs, as the atmosphere can get old. This album reminds me of a more creative version of IRREVERSIBLE MECHANISM's "Immersion" in that it starts off with a lot of riffs and then mellows out in the middle, providing the listener with atmosphere instead of heaviness. However, unlike Irreversible Mechanism, the riffs come back with the final track.

Overall, this is actually a very good album. I know I nitpicked a bit here and there, but that doesn't really mean much. The fact is that this album is a well-composed piece of Progressive Death Metal. In fact, it's even pretty original.