Album Review: Ad Infinitum – ‘Abyss’

Ad Infinitum’s latest release, Abyss, is a theatrical and genre-blending album that walks the line between symphonic, hardcore, post-hardcore, and pop music. The music blends delicate orchestrated elements with thundering bass lines to create a powerful and grandiose journey that is driven with raw intensity, but despite the emotional lyrics, Abyss ironically lacks depth.

Ad Infinitum is widely considered a symphonic band, even though their orchestrations tend to take a backseat role, complementing the music without ever feeling like the focus of a track. In Abyss, Ad Infinitum leans more into their pop-metal sound and keeps the drums (Niklas Müller) and guitars (Adrian Thessenvitz) a bit softer throughout the album. Instead, the central focus alternates between Melissa Bonny’s powerful and dynamic vocals and Korbinian Benedict’s heavy bass, creating an upbeat and beautiful sound, but missing the mark on effectively displaying the band’s full range.

Overall, the album feels well-produced and had a lot of potential, but it feels like the band hit a creative block partway through writing the album. The musical talent in every member is clear, but the lyrics are overly repetitive and the genre-jumping doesn’t always feel cohesive or well-done, with a very heavy lean towards pop and EDM sounds over traditional metal arrangement.

Abyss starts off with the catchy track “My Halo,” which sets the tone for the album with upbeat poppy lyrics and solid breakdowns. From there, a few of the songs do feel a bit heavier and lean into the deathcore or djent range, like “Follow Me Down,” “Aftermath,” and “The one that you’ll hold on to,” while “Outer Space” and “Parasite” feel more like melodic pop metal songs made for radio play in an era where most fans aren’t listening to the radio.

“Euphoria” and “Surrender” are incredibly catchy dance tunes that incorporate a lot of electronic music influence and make breakdowns feel more like EDM drops than deathcore. “Anthem for the Broken” had so much potential as a haunting and tragic ballad, but the verses fail to match the hurt in the chorus. The ending refrains of the chorus, which sounds like a choir of children, creates a very unnerving and depressing effect, though. The main album ends on “Dead End,” which had some nice heaviness with the increased kick drum and distorted guitars but mostly felt like a weak and unmemorable ending. The special edition includes an orchestral version of “My Halo,” which gives the track a much more complete feeling and would be at home in the ending credits of a Marvel movie with equal parts cinematic and sad pop metal vibes.

While I do feel this album has missed the mark at being a strong contender in the increasingly populated genre-bending symphonic metal world, it was very catchy and I think many fans will enjoy it as a fun, guilty pleasure album. It’s also worthwhile to consider that Ad Infinitum is a newer band, and this is their fourth album in five years, so it was nearly inevitable at that pace that they would eventually have an album that doesn’t show their full potential. Since it’s incredibly clear from the previous albums and the strongest points in Abyss that every member is incredibly talented, my hope is that they will come back stronger on the next record.

Track List:

01) My Halo
02) Follow Me Down
03) Outer Space
04) Aftermath
05) Euphoria
06) Surrender
07) Anthem for the Broken
08) The one you’ll hold on to
09) Parasite
10) Dead End
11) My Halo – Orchestral (earbook version only)