Abigail Williams debuted in 2006 with the Legend ep and immediately managed to polarize opinion. There was a section of people and media that thought their brand of “blackened melodic death-core” was great while some people thought it was utter shit. Either ways, the band got a lot of press with just that one ep to show for and then suddenly announced that they’d broken up.

I thought that was it for the band but somewhere along the way, main man and vocalist Ken Sorceron decided to put the band back together, write new material and 2008 sees the band release its full length debut In The Shadow of a Thousand Suns. Now, blackened death-core may not sound very appealing. Especially when you consider the added appellation of “melodic,” but the band’s concept of black metal seems to stem largely from Cradle of Filth’s Cruelty and the Beast and Dimmu Borgir’s Spiritual Black Dimensions. It’s melodic, slightly cheesy and overall quite non-threatening. The keyboards play a pretty big role in the songwriting and again it’s of a very gothic nature. There are the occasional core breakdowns but mostly, In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns is your normal everyday blackened death metal where the black metal and the death metal seem to have been inspired by the name bands of the scene.

Case in point is the mid-album song Smoke and Mirrors. Starting with some chuggy riffs and atmospheric keyboards, it then goes off into your typical CoF guitar before coming back to that chuggy metal-core riff. The keyboard playing right through this song could have easily come from a Tristania or Sins of Thy Beloved song. Overall, there’s nothing that’s really too wrong here but at the same time, there’s nothing that’s memorable either.

That’s pretty much the problem with the whole album. There’s very little in terms of song writing maturity or growth from the debut ep to this album apart from the fact that most of the core elements have been replaced by CoF-isms. Ken Sorceron’s had to deal with a revolving door when it comes to the rest of the band and that may have had an effect on the final product but even with that in mind, In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns is a very average effort from a band that’s got more than its fair share of hype.

Label - Candlelight
Year of Release - 2008