ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

THE INFERNAL SEA

NEW CROSS INN, LONDON

The New Cross Inn clearly has a decree that it must have at least one ‘village idiot’ at every metal gig. Tonight’s contender, aside from the various, mistimed pirouettes across the floor, decides it’s a good idea to pick the infernal sea’s lantern up from the stage, before a blackcowled figure looms over to make him question the wisdom of his actions. Not that it’s going to make the band break their stride. Now fully dolled up in beaked, medieval plague masks, the UK black metallers’ odes to pestilence might lack a little in atmospheric scope, but their driving force is as unstoppable as their subject matter, very reminiscent of last decade’s UKBM scene in its to-business, spirituality-be-damned brutality. A very different take on BM,

abigail Williams’ yearning yet ecstatic surge has fallen off the radar in recent years, but they’ve never felt as timely as they do now. Down to a three-piece, their rocket-fuelled catharsis alchemises mourning into something liberating, whipping up a bereft, gnashing fervour cut from the same, scorched branch of Wolves In The Throne Room, but a devastating moment of reckoning that has fools and followers in their thrall.