Album Review: Static Abyss - The Dying Hunt (Peaceville, 2026)
- 3 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Written: 14th August 2026
Formed in the early 2020s, Static Abyss is the side project of Greg Wilkinson and Chris Reifert, both members of legendary death metal outfit Autopsy, with Reifert's career stretching back even further to the formative days of the genre as a member of Death. Following the release of Labyrinth of Veins in 2022 and Aborted From Reality a year later, the band return with their third full-length album, The Dying Hunt. For this latest release, Wilkinson and Reifert are joined by Necrot drummer Chad Gailey.
Wasting no time in getting down to business, the trio open The Dying Hunt with the two minute rampage of Skull Blasted. Furious riffs and savage drumming grab us round the throat from the opening seconds and Reifert delivers the first words. Fragments of cerebral ruin / Pelt the landscape like calcified rain / Cranial cavity blooming crimson / Just a void where once dwelt a brain. He performs the vocals with the confidence and authority of a seasoned veteran, his trademark qualities showing little sign of diminishing with age. Even within such a short track, Static Abyss find time to alter tempos and bring different elements to the fore, Chad Gailey making an instant impression.
Lobotomized At Last opens with an insistent groove and infectious guitar that initially hint at something more controlled despite the subject matter. Throughout the song, this slower style alternates with a primitive, deranged salvo of riffs and vocals that accelerate instantly. A minute from the end of the track, everything slows even further with death doom style motifs that signify life draining away. These carefully judged variations are what make The Dying Hunt a record that demands repeated listening.
Lyrically, the title track explores a violent uprising by society’s outcasts. There is a post-apocalyptic feel, depicting sick and abandoned people striking back against those they blame for their suffering. Weaponizing with nothing to lose / The coughing blood they gather / Tribunal vengeance / For those kicked aside. Belligerent guitar drives the introduction before cavernous, oppressive doom metal drags us back into darker territory. Experimenting with tempos once again, Static Abyss harness a malevolent personality to weave their punishing narrative. Wall of Delusion makes no attempt at subtlety and its ninety seconds pass by in a maelstrom of virulent and barbaric aggression. Nevertheless, the band's attention to detail within the arrangements is obvious, something fans have come to expect from Reifert.
Each track on The Dying Hunt has a distinct aura. The feverish Once A Corpse (Always A Corpse) serves as a scathing attack on organised religion and religious hypocrisy, its rabid guitar work and abrasive, deliberately uncomfortable lead passages mirroring the song's contempt for those who profit from promises of salvation. In contrast, Bleeding In The Fog begins with a stomping, remorseless sense of foreboding and possesses the cloying air of something noxious as it conjures a bleak vision of purgatory. As the track progresses, it builds towards a crushing, monolithic conclusion whose sheer weight feels as though it is dragging us down into the mire alongside it.
Sinew Leech and Nowhere Forever - the latter of which finds the protagonist seemingly trapped in a void beyond death, stripped of identity and purpose – continue to highlight the death doom aspects of the album but these elements never become overly repetitive, largely because Static Abyss understand how to construct an engaging listen. Even during the faster passages of Nowhere Forever, there is sufficient detail beneath the surface to reward repeated listens, with intricate bass lines weaving around the restless, unnerving guitar work in ways that are not immediately apparent. The album flows as a whole and is also enhanced by the trio’s careful consideration of the track listing, with shorter (sub-two minute) punk-infused pieces such as Wall of Delusion and Defleshed and Forlorn ensuring the album retains both its urgency and sense of purpose throughout.
Volcanic Womb is one of the more interesting tracks here, beginning in relatively familiar death metal fashion before transforming after a minute into something that feels almost processional in nature, as though we are being led steadily towards a tragic and inescapable fate. A malignant vision of destruction and extinction, its harrowing lyrics perfectly reflecting the unsettling tone. Mother, let us slowly die / Magma geysers blind our eyes / We are twisted and demented / Much too late for kills lamented.
Darkness At The End Of The Light brings the album to a fitting conclusion, drawing together many of the musical threads that have surfaced throughout The Dying Hunt. Lyrically, it concerns the collapse of false hope, religious institutions and accepted truths, while musically it ranks among the most formidable pieces here. The lumbering riffs create a sepulchral presence that seems to emerge from some forgotten subterranean realm, while a more urgent central section throws their impact into even sharper focus. There is something deeply disquieting about the piece. During the final twenty seconds, the dominant riffs gradually dissolve, leaving a handful of grotesque guitar notes hanging in the ether.
With Wilkinson, Reifert and Gailey at the helm, there was never much danger of The Dying Hunt falling short in terms of quality. While there is undoubtedly much here that fans of Autopsy will recognise, Static Abyss continue to maintain a character of their own, combining savage death metal, suffocating doom and moments of near-psychotic intensity into a consistently engaging listen. Characterised by strong performances throughout, the album is a taut thirty-seven minutes, never lingering longer than necessary.
Greg Wilkinson's mixing strikes an admirable balance between clarity and menace, ensuring the finer details remain audible without diminishing the more abrasive aspects of the music. An album steeped in decay, depravity and despair, The Dying Hunt is a thoroughly convincing addition to the band's catalogue and further evidence that Static Abyss are far more than simply an outlet for two veterans between Autopsy releases. Bludgeoning. Exacting. Unyielding.
The Dying Hunt is released on 28th August 2026.
Static Abyss online:
Comments