UMUR "Leveling the Plane of Existence" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US death metal act Abysmal Dawn. The album was released through Relapse Records in February 2011. The band is a three-piece consisting of Charles Elliott (Vocals, Guitar), Michael Cosio (Bass) and Scott Fuller (Drums, Percussion). Moyses Kolesne (Krisiun) and Kragen Lum (Heathen, Prototype, Psychosis) help out with a couple of guitar solos.

The music on the album is death metal with a technical edge. The playing are generally on a high level, but the relatively technical playing are a means to an end and not technical playing for the sake of it and as a result the tracks are catchy and doesn´t take many spins to tell apart. I´d like to mention tracks like "Pixilated Ignorance", "Perpetual Dormancy" and the strong closing track "The Sleeper Awakens" as some of the highlights on the 10 track, 38:49 minute long album. I like the fact that Abysmal Dawn doesn´t sound neither old school nor "modern" on this album. They successfully come off as timeless to my ears and while I detect influences from acts such as Morbid Angel and Death, those influences are never too apparent. The music on "Leveling the Plane of Existence" strike a good balance between brutality, technical playing and memorable melodic moments. The latter is represented by the many great melodic guitar solos on the album. Abysmal Dawn seamlessly change pace within tracks and there´s also the occasional playing with time signatures. It´s never at the expense of flow or power though. The vocals are brutal growls but they are not completely unintelligible. There are also some higher pitched aggresssive growls thrown in for effectful variation.

The sound production is professional, dark and powerful. A very suiting sound for this kind of music. "Leveling the Plane of Existence" is upon conclusion a great album if you enjoy your death metal with a technical edge (this is not as such tech death), a professional and powerful sound production and high level musicianship. The material are well written too and there´s actually nothing preventing me from giving a 4 star (80%) rating.

J-Man If technical death metal (minus the metalcore influence that seems to dominate the scene nowadays) is your thing, you may have taken notice to Abysmal Dawn's 2008 effort for Relapse Records, Programmed to Consume. Fast-forward three years, and Abysmal Dawn has out their second album for Relapse (third album total) in the form of Leveling the Plane of Existence. This killer blend of old school U.S. death metal and modern technical death metal is one that should please Abysmal Dawn fans and newcomers alike. Leveling the Plane of Existence contains breathtaking musicianship, engaging compositions, and plenty of moments worth headbanging to - there's not much more I can ask for from a technical death metal album!

The music on Leveling the Plane of Existence is modern American death metal, but with ample doses of technicality and occasionally progressive tendencies. This is an album characterized by blinding leads, deep guttural growls, relentless drum patterns, and heavy guitar riffs - this isn't for the faint of heart! The musicianship is excellent across the board; Abysmal Dawn is a band that consists only of top-notch virtuosos. The amount of noise that this trio can make with only 3 people is truly admirable! Leveling the Plane of Existence clocks in at just under 40 minutes, which is a pretty great length for a technical death metal record. Not all tracks are extremely memorable ("In Service of Time" is the benchmark masterpiece here), but the short running length prevents this from becoming a large issue. The production is sleek, modern, and technically pleasing.

Abysmal Dawn really took me by surprise with their third album - I've sincerely had a great time listening to Leveling the Plane of Existence. It's not too common to hear a technical death metal album with this much power nowadays! This may not be the most original album on the planet, but it's difficult to argue with quality like this. This is a 3.5 star release from me, but it's damn close to a 4. Fans of technical death metal contemporaries in the vein of Obscura are advised to give this one a spin!

The Block Our Primitive Nature

Not to say anything bad about Abysmal Dawn, who has released one heck of an album, but overall the album is pretty unoriginal. Besides a few songs here and there most of it is you normal run of the mill death metal. It is in no way brutally heavy, but there is a sense of grandness to it that makes it a very enjoyable listen.

One of my favorite tracks on the album is “The Age of Ruin” because it is a totally different song from most of the rest of the album. The bass and guitar opening is very sinister, and one of the high points in originality on the album. The whole song, though barely two minutes, is a great opener and shows off great musicianship especially by Mike Cosio and Charles Elliot. Another short, but good, song is “Our Primitive Nature” which, as you can tell by the name, is a very basic, yet enjoyable song. It provides a nice interlude on the album and has some nice Congo work by Scott Fuller. The song is a nice lead up to “Perpetual Dormancy”, and is one of the only other creative songs on “Leveling the Plane of Existence”.

As I’ve said before, this album isn’t really all that original, but even though it still produces some great riffs and melodies. The opening of “Manufactured Humanity” could have been taken right out of “The Sound of Perseverance”, and has a nice electric guitar opening, but from there it levels out to a more plain sound. Most of the melodies are reminiscent of late Death work and also Morbid Angel. The solos are also pretty good, especially on “Manufactured Humanity” and the beginning of “In Service of Time”. The slow sections, such as those on “The Sleeper Awakens”, are very well played and add a nice touch to the album.

The production is pretty standard of the modern U.S. death metal scene, but it goes with the album fine. Relapse Records has, once again, struck something good this year and have really shown how good of a label they are.

“Leveling the Plane of Existence” is a nice effort from Abysmal Dawn, and any fan of their past releases should definitely consider picking this one up. Even though at times it can fall into some genre clichés, “Leveling the Plane of Existence” is a very good album with nice drum work, cool solos, and overall good musicianship. For their good effort Abysmal Dawn gets 3.5 stars.

adg211288 Leveling the Plane of Existence is the third full-length album from US Death Metal act Abysmal Dawn, released in 2011 and containing just under forty minutes of music over its ten tracks, two of which are instrumentals.

The album begins with the haunting piano led piece The Age of Ruin which serves as an introduction that sounds designed to lull the listener into a false sense of security before the band kicks things into full on death metal with Pixilated Ignorance. Songs like this serve as the staple of the Abysmal Dawn sound. The death vocals are strong, the guitars are intense with enough melody to keep the music from sounding like a blur of brutality. But it is a fair assessment to say that Abysmal Dawn as a band don’t bring anything new to the table. Their music is pretty much your typical generic death metal but there is one important factor to consider with Abysmal Dawn, what they do, they do really well, and Leveling the Plane of Existence is no exception in a run of high quality death metal studio releases.

The album’s first highlight is In Service of Time. The guitars have great groove to them here that fit well with the vocals. It’s still generic but its songs such as this one that make Abysmal Dawn’s Leveling the Plane of Existence such a solid death metal release that in my opinion is well worth fans of the style checking out.

The pace is kept up through to Rapture Renowned which features some really great lead guitar and is another of my highlights. After this we get the album’s shortest track, Our Primitive Nature, at just fifty-six seconds long is pretty much just an interlude, but what a curveball of an interlude! The sound here is like some sort of tribal drumming which then bursts straight into our next actual song, which is Perpetual Dormancy. The title track follows on from this one and is another of my highlights from Leveling The Plane of Existence. This track has everything that I feel makes a death metal song really great.

The quality is kept up throughout the album though, and its overall length is ideal considering that deep down this is nothing new. Any longer I feel that the album could drag on a bit, but they’ve found the right sort of length to make it work to its best effect. They save a big surprise for last though, because The Sleeper Awakens features a much slower pace, clean guitars and less in your face vocal delivery which sounds more akin to black metal than death metal. This is the album’s longest track and features the most variety in the music out of everything on offer here. It’s also one of my highlights because it’s different to all the other songs, and proves that deep down Abysmal Dawn may not be the one trick pony that most of Leveling the Plane of Existence makes them out to be, instrumentals aside. Overall I think I’d have liked them to showcase this perhaps a bit more on the album because for the most part this is very formulated, and despite their incredible strengths as a band I do think that they’ve going to have to eventually re-think their game if they are to be given more of the time of day. This album fully deserves the score I’m giving it, but in a world where people have limited time and money, I can’t actually give any further justification as to why this is worth it.

(Review originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)