Imperial Crystalline Entombment hail from Waldorf, MD, and is the brainchild of Ron Vento from Aurora Borealis, who also owns NightSky Productions and is a well-known name in extreme metal for his recording and production qualities. Abominable Astral Summoning is the newest and third creation for I.C.E. Ron provides all the instrumentation, while Mike Hrubovcak, a good friend, does the growling. Mike is one of the premier graphic artists in the scene, as well as being in bands such as Azure Emote and Hypoxia (RIP Carlos). Due to the hellaciously long name, let’s refer to the band with the acronym, they also go by I.C.E. This is ultra-fast and brutal black metal. Not for the faint of heart.

After a brief intro, “Insufferable Shivers” erupts out of the cold shadows with blasts galore and Mike letting out a neat growl. The guitar work, as we all know, from Ron, will have razor wire riffs, and this is no exception. A plethora of time changes and Mike letting out some really long shrieky growls. The blasts are so furious, and I do not see any info on the drummer, and I would suspect this is a drum machine. The production of it is phenomenal. It’s to the point that with today’s triggering of real drummers in the studio, honestly, you can’t tell the difference here, folks.

“White Behemoths of Woe” is slap upon slap to your face. It begins ferociously with a monstrous blast that will wipe your head clean off your pathetic shoulders. This is a ruthless song and my favorite song on the album. The guitar soloing over the relentless blasting, in the middle of the song, is incredible. This song has a way of taking the listener through various body slams and suplexes and eventually ending you with the Cobra Clutch to rattle your body useless. This is definitely a favorite song for me in all of 2025.

“Avalanche Apocalypse” at over five and a half minutes, believe it or not, starts slow. I was like ‘thankfully, you rat bastids are allowing me to catch my breath’. The song picks up with a blast, then settles down to a slow black metal crawl with Mike screaming his lungs out. The harmonies at the 1.29 time stamp are excellent, as are the tempo shifts, which are abrupt and stop on a dime type of chaos. These rhythmic measures cascade throughout the song and kinda go along nicely with the cold as ice (pun intended) album cover. All their album covers all have a similar theme. Regardless, this is yet another terrific song with lots of punch the wall moments, as well as slower sections to sink your teeth into a bit more.

“Cryogenic Death” is straight from the chambers of ice caverns. Stop and start blasts in the beginning and various guitar sounds and harmonies over the riffs with solos, this song is yet another vicious foray into the disturbed mind of Mr. Vento’s as he conjures up quite an abundance of time shifts and razor-sharp riffing. From the 1.40 section on is just plain insanity with Mike showcasing his other vocal side. Well, he does highs on his other projects, but he is always bringing in the guttural death metal vocals as the main tone. Here is just black metal, and he’s impressive. Doing those types of vocals can be a bit harsher, on the body. One must harness the air in their diaphragm a bit more. I have experimented with this vocal style and have done only a little bit of it on recordings. It’s a tough vocal style, and Mike nails it on this album.

Abominable Astral Summoning is an excellent black metal album by Imperial Crystalline Entombment (I.C.E.). The music is cold, calculating, brutal, yet not devoid of melody at all. The music and vocals go perfectly with the album cover. When black metal erupted in the 90’s it was initially stark and cold. To me, that is what true black metal is: brutal and relentless. Then the scene got muddied with the sub and sub-sub genres of black metal (every genre now has multiple sub-categories, come to think of it). So it you’re itching for true black metal played with precision and skill with a sharp AF production, you’d better get this now before Belzebub comes a knocking.

[Visit the band's website]

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