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Abandoned Image
Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

  • Artist(s): Jay Maas, Derek Archambault, Joe Longobardi, Mike Poulin
  • Summary: The fifth full-length for the Boston-based hardcore band led by Derek Archamault continues its conceptual albums about a New Jersey blue-collar family with a focus on a Catholic priest who is having a crisis of faith due to his time in World War II.
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Top Track

Spared in Hell
I've never heard the voice of god, I've found no trace of heaven either. Since I was spared in hell I repay the old chaplain that saved me. I spend... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Alternative Press
    Aug 27, 2015
    90
    It's truly an incredible piece of work that excavates the very core of human existence. [Sep 2015, p.95]
  2. Showcasing the very best of Archambault’s lyrics and the band’s musicianship while channeling more post-rock-esque breaks along with diverse shifts in pacing and tone into their brand of hardcore, Abandoned is undoubtedly the essential Defeater release and gold-standard for hardcore in 2015.
  3. Kerrang!
    Aug 27, 2015
    80
    For an album about broken faith, this should convert a lot of new listeners. [29 Aug 2015, p.52]
  4. 80
    Abandoned, amid its mid-tempo hardcore aggression, is more introspective and focuses on personal torment and demons. It sinks its teeth into you, very deeply.
  5. Aug 27, 2015
    70
    It's a diverse mixture of sounds delivered in a cohesive and well-arranged package.
  6. Sep 14, 2015
    70
    Occasionally deploying hackneyed lines of faith-versus-vice strife, the band risks veering too far into the general, relying on rhythmic and timbral rawness to put more weight into the words. But within the glimpses of experience, one finds embryonic narrative pulses colored by idiosyncratic torment.
  7. Aug 27, 2015
    60
    Bookended by a pair of moody cuts replete with intoned prayers spoken in the background, Abandoned plays to the severity of the Catholic faith, and if Defeater's thematic tendencies have begun to wear a bit thin, they still manage to pack a pretty big punch on a musical level.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of