French heavy rock and doom unit ABRAHMA return with their most powerful album to date and striking testimony about mental health issues on Small Stone Records. “In Time For The Last Rays Of Light” can be streamed in full now.
“In Time for the Last Rays of Light” follows three tumultuous years of personal challenges and lineup changes, addressing mental illness through eight gloomy and breathtaking songs. Far from the stoner rock meanderings of the previous records, the French five piece deliver their darkest and most incisive album yet, brilliantly evolving towards heavier and more progressive horizons than before. It was entirely produced by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Paradise Lost, Cathedral). On top of the release, the band intends to donate a portion of merch sales from their next tour to mental health causes.
“Abrahma do manage to craft something beautiful out of the darkened foundations from which they work.” JJ Koczan at The Obelisk states. “It is a record of striking instrumental purpose and expressive intent. It not only moves their sound forward from where it was four years ago, but it changes the narrative of the group’s function and that of Bismuth as a bandleader and songwriter.”
Produced and mixed at Orgone Studios by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Paradise Lost, Ghost, Candlemass), “In Time for the Last Rays of Light” follows 2015’s “Reflections in the Bowels of a Bird” and whether it is the stark chug and lumbering weight of “Eclipse of the Sane Pt. 1: Isolation Ghosts” or the furious blast-beating in the prior “Lucidly Adrift,” its songs produce a depth of atmosphere that speaks to the soul that birthed them. A split with the prior lineup of the band brought the Rouen, France-based founding vocalist/guitarist Sébastien Bismuth into contact with local outfit Splendor Solis, whose members would soon be folded into the new incarnation of ABRAHMA. After many false starts, the band hit the studio in July 2018 and set to work on what is unmistakably their greatest accomplishment to-date: an album that copes with the depression that birthed it and soars hopefully above while reminding that the darkness beneath is ever-present.
“People do not take mental illness seriously,” says Bismuth. “People suffering from depression generally feel rejected, and it is not only a feeling. People that never gone through it generally do not really understand how hard it can be to live every day with this weight on your shoulders, all those questions going through your head.” Spanning genres and decades of influence, from the Bowie-ism of “…Last Epistle” to the gothic unfolding of closer “There Bears the Fruit of Deceit,” “In Time for the Last Rays of Light” speaks with raw honesty and lush craft to its challenges and realizations. In keeping with the album’s theme, a portion of the merch proceeds from ABRAHMA’s next tours will go to help those suffering from mental illness. “I decided to use this album has a medication against this depression and maybe help other people in this situation,” Bismuth recounts. “Each song explains a different side of it: loss of confidence, other’s critical looks, the impression of not having a place in this world.”
With front and back covers by famed French artist Gustave Doré (1832-1883) and a greater expanse of sound than ABRAHMA has ever had before, “In Time for the Last Rays of Light” confronts its demons and offers a reminder that light exists in the first place.” (Words by JJ koczan for The Obelisk)
ABRAHMA is
Sébastien Bismuth – Vocals/guitar/effects
Florian Leguillon – Guitar/backing vocals
Benoît Carel – Guitar/synth/backing vocals
Romain Hauduc – Bass/backing vocals
Baptiste Keriel – Drums/backing vocals