An Abstract Illusion made waves with their acclaimed sophomore album, Woe, in 2022. Three years later, their highly anticipated third full-length release, The Sleeping City, has arrived. A band’s third record is often the biggest opportunity in their fledgling career. With their debut, they make their initial statement; with their second, they build on that statement to establish an identity. The third album is their chance to break out. Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast, Leprous’ Coal, Opeth’s My Arms Your Hearse, Haken’s The Mountain, and Wilderun’s Veil of Imagination are just a few examples of bands leveling up for their third release.
On their debut, Illuminate the Path, An Abstract Illusion embraced expansiveness, augmenting soaring melodies with emotional synth arpeggions for something reminiscent of post-rock through the lens of progressive death metal. Woe, on the other hand, took a darker and heavier approach, embracing size rather than space and using more imposing riffs. The Sleeping City synthesizes both styles into graceful atmospheric progressive death metal. It delivers a much more refined version of that sense of open space, evoking the cold beauty of the natural surroundings of their hometown Boden in northern Sweden, while still carrying a weighty darkness. The keyboards play a much more prominent role in the arrangement, filling out the sound and adding a counterweight to the guitar melodies.
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This is all to say that The Sleeping City is the Swedish group’s second roaring success. The songs are meticulously crafted, with none feeling overlong despite three of them exceeding 10 minutes in length. Their dynamic writing is apparent on the opening track “Blackmurmur,” which commences with a keyboard arpeggio in 5/8, then spends time in 6/8 before finishing in 4/4. The rest of the album ebbs and flows in the same manner, weaving moods together and shifting time signatures to keep the songs constantly moving forward. Furious tremolo-picked riffs cascade over the listener, only to give way to gentler, colder passages that slowly build back up into pounding, monumental conclusions.
The band talked about how they endeavored to push their sonic palette on The Sleeping City, incorporating influence from Depeche Mode, My Bloody Valentine, Kite, Ólafur Arnalds, and Boards of Canada. While they aren’t going full shoegaze or new wave (yet…), these influences are apparent on songs like “Blackmurmur,” whose beautiful passages bring to mind synth-pop while still forefronting progressive death metal. “Frost Flower” has clean-sung vocal melodies that could easily be found in new wave. It also features a standout moment where a soulful guitar solo ends on a held note that the keyboard picks up and leads directly into a heartfelt solo of its own. Meanwhile, there are passages, such as on “Silverfields,” that call to mind something more like Vangelis’ sci-fi soundscapes.
The Vangelis comparison feels especially apt, given the concept An Abstract Illusion was aiming for. The Sleeping City is a hypothetical soundtrack of a dystopian sci-fi movie written by a death metal band. It is still very much a progressive death metal album, but there is a sense of cinematic drama running throughout. “No Dreams Beyond Empty Horizons” is a notable example of this, featuring leitmotifs that show up throughout the track’s runtime. These guiding themes, which are often played on guitar and then repeated on the keyboard, give the song a greater sense of development and progression. Finally, it all comes to an emotional ending with a moody outro that would sound perfectly in place on the Blade Runner soundtrack. It’s through these elements that The Sleeping City instills cohesion and purpose. It develops in a way that feels intentional, rising and falling in action the same way a story would.
Following up Woe is no easy task, but with The Sleeping City, these purveyors of atmospheric hymns from the tundra have crafted an album that is just as worthy, and perhaps even surpassed it without treading the same ground as before. It represents a true lift-off moment for An Abstract Illusion. Expanding their sound to more influences opens new directions for them to explore further in the future, and the ambition and ability that are on display here set them up for great things to come.
–Kevin Zecchel
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The Sleeping City is available now via Willowtip Records.
