In April 2017 I came back to Rancid Abomination. By the end of December the previous year I had folded RA Permanently. But I wanted to return to it, with a major change to it's sound as well... I was sick and tired of the disgusting evil lyrics it had and wanted to write about something completely different, something scary... So I chose Paranormal Phenomena this time. I was no stranger to it, being a UFO investigator for over 5 years before the change was decided on, and Rancid Abomination was no stranger to it as well, doing paranormal themed albums several times in it's career from 2001-2006 as well.
What made the album I was about to do different was more involved though. I didn't want this cd to sound anything like older Rancid Abomination, so for the album (Which I would call "Staring into the Eyes of Madness"), I would ditch the thrashy riffs for black metal chords being used like normal black metal and in power thrash type riffs (think old iced earth), add elements of symphonic black metal back into the band's sound for the first time since 2003, throw in some fill ins and drum beats eerily reminiscent of drum beats done by the Band Melechesh, and on top of that, fuse in Windir Like Melodies at times... I even did an atmospheric Black Metal song too, very similar to Summoning. There were a few songs that didn't do any of this though, or very little and that was interesting as well. Overall the drumming was much more technical on this cd then any other RA one before, and it made it far better musically. And the music was even better as well, because of the symphonic elements and the Windir-like melodies thrown in. You see influences creep in from what you listen to a lot and this was no different.
Due to these changes this album has a really cool unique sound to it and doesn't really sound like Classsic Rancid Abomination at all. It completely ditches oldschool Rancid Abomination sound and adds so many new things to the table. I like it, it's fun to listen to. In fact I think this is the best Rancid Abomination cd ever. It still had that Rancid Abomination touch on it (delayed harmonies) but they were hard to hear on this so they were far less noticeable.
The whole album was a massive concept album about Paranormal stuff, including Alien Abductions (Track 1), Bigfoot Cloaking (Track 2), Alien Contactees (Track 3), Black Eyed Kids (Track 4), Spring Heeled Jack (Track 5), Hauntings where deer-man hybrid ghost appear (Track 6), Appearances of beings from Native American Folklore being seen in real life (Track 7), and Mothman (Track 8).
I would follow up this album with a Wintersun Style Documentary on the creation of the cd. It wasn't nearly as good as the Forest Seasons documentary but It described the sound well at least. Never really got viewed...
I would follow up this cd with it's sequel album "Metaphysical torment" which was also another concept album on Paranormal stuff. It unlike staring, was a little bit less power metal riffage oriented and had more black metal chords than staring. And the feeling of this cd was a lot darker, being a lot more sinister sounding overall, Staring sounded epic, this sounded dreadful. But besides that the album was very similar to staring in a lot of ways. It was produced better and had easier to hear delayed harmonies.
The songs were about different paranormal stories this time, a lot came from an interview I watched on youtube with an author named Stephanie Young, who is a British Paranormal Researcher. The songs were about the following things... Horrible screams coming from a place where there was nothing around (Track 1), A man from New york city who vanished in Wyoming and was missing for a while, a suspected Alien Abduction (Track 2), A case of a phantom that appeared but could not be seen but it moving through forests could be seen due to trees moving (Track 3), a cult abduction which I will get into later (Track 4), The disappearance of a Minnesota Selectman and moans recorded on his cell phone (Track 5), An appearance of a weird white ghost in a lake in Arkansas (track 6), a cat that walked backwards like a man in an account I read on a paranormal board (track 7) and a ghost story that scared the crap out of me, someone seing a floating tentacled woman with black eyes (Track 8).
The cult abduction song was the star of the show here. The song was creepy and depressing, a lot like classic Caustic Euphony Material. The song was written about two friends who went driving to texas and they kept on complaining about themselves being followed by a convoy of different cars. They tried to talk to several sherrifs, but all of them wrote the kids off as druggies. They ended up eventually abandoning their car. They split up. One stayed behind and got rescued. The other swam several miles and ended up being captured to be sacrificed at this sick church of demonic cultists that had dead animals with blood everywhere. He escaped. He found a town and started eating because he was starving, but he was eating out of a fridge of a cop. He attacked the cop because he thought all of the cops were in on it. He went to a mental institution later and never changed his story... It's a fucked up story...
Overall, I like Metaphysical torment. But the only track on it I think is great is the cult one.. Every other one is good but not great. I think this cd was a disappointment compared to Staring...
