What’s up, Butcher Crew?! It’s The Saw. And Abbath is back with another new single, the title track off his upcoming new album, Dread Reaver. If the two singles (“Dream Cull” was the first single dropped) are any indication, this new record is going to be awesome! I covered all the ground concerning Abbath, previously, in my review of “Dream Cull,” my show review, and band feature of Abbath, so I’ll get straight into the new single, “Dread Reaver.”

Sample Lyrics

In gnawing ache of famished shadows, cadavers limp, creak from gallows.

 On a corpse-road lined with makeshift scaffolds.

We leave a trail of weeping beggars. Orphaned brood and grieving widows.

Gladius of Gehenna fill the foul arena, cleave for all eternity thigh-deep in viscera.

Commit your soul to pyre and brimstone. Unite in blood, scum the violent stream.

Dread Reaver cannot aught but rip, compel momentum from the pit.

Dread Reaver cannot aught but strip… the gore his animus thrills to drip.

The image of Abbath’s gory vision, his hellish imagination, bleeds through the lyrics of Dread Reaver. Out from the pit comes a hoard of gladiators, destroyers of the universe. Warriors responsible for the death of all but a few (physically, and psychologically) amputated witnesses. Littering the land with rickety make-shift gallows in their wake. All humanity is horribly slayed, and/or hung from nooses.

The spoken word in the track makes the bloodshed and violent horrors even clearer. Dread Reaver has a wicked riff that drives the song from start to finish. It aligns perfectly with the gruesome images – the army of darkness – loosed on the earth. Abbath’s trademark vocal style really sets the song off! The sense of gloom and doom is ever present, in instruments and vocals.

Very impressive!

Dread Reaver, the new full-length album from Abbath, is due to be released on March 25, 2022.

Stay Metal,

THE SAW