review by: Roberto Martinelli

Absu display their strongest effort on this, their fifth album. All across the board, from the musicianship to the production, and most importantly of all, the focus, Tara is a top-notch effort.

My encounters with previous Absu recordings (The Sun of Tiphareth, In the Eyes of Ioldanach) presented a band whose music hovered and lacked direction, but that is far from the case here. Eleven tracks of blackened thrash filled with razor-sharp, technical riffs and mind-blowing drumming are sandwiched between two spellbinding bagpipe pieces. As much as both the metal and bagpipe elements of the album are fantastic, a case could be made that they clash with each other on the same disk. This may be the only thing even resembling a weak point on Tara.

While the three-piece pulls off the dizzying technicality flawlessly, the standout is doubtlessly Proscriptor, the band's drummer. Proscriptor brings his own flavor and approach to the kit, and his talent is complemented by the excellent production as it separates each of the pieces of his kit clearly. The intricate rhythms and subtleties have raised the bar of extreme metal drumming.

The album is packaged with a thick booklet detailing the mythical beliefs and philosophies of the band, kind of doing for ancient Celtic-based myth what Nile's Black Seeds of Vengeance did for the Egyptian equivalent.