Strictly spoken, this is not an album, just an EP – but I don’t care. This EP has been one of my most awaited EPs this year (maybe not only this year, I’ve been waiting for this since Abyss Pt I was published). And it was worth the wait.
With Abyss Pt II, Annisokay released a 6 track piece with 2 previously unpublished songs. The overall mood of the songs is, I’d say, pretty dark. Nothing else to be expected from a record that’s called Abyss I guess. Surprisingly, the first single that was released from this EP was H.A.T.E. and I only consider it surprising because it’s a feature with Any Given Day that I personally did not expect to be included on the EP when it was released. I’m very pleased though, because this song slaps a lot.
The other previously released tracks were Get Your Shit Together (and with the music video, Annisokay basically already foreshadowed that they would part ways with their drummer Nico Vaeen, as he was the only one who wasn’t visible a single time in the music video…). It was followed by Never Enough (which was cleverly introduced by an Instagram post of Christoph Wieczorek in which he talked about the feeling of being ’never good enough‘). And finally, shortly before the release of the EP, they released the closing track Inner Sanctum, which picks up the melody of Into The Abyss (the opening track of Abyss Pt I).
With Oblivion and Into The Gray they added two more songs that fit the vibe of the entire EP (and Into The Gray brings a nice ballad-ish vibe with it without being too … cheesy?). All in all, Annisokay stay true to themselves despite a lot of recent line-up changes. Their sound is consistent and remarkable in itself.
The playing time is a bit over 23 minutes and in combination with Abyss Pt I, both records create a very nice complete picture (in a literal sense: the album artworks fit together as one and they’re stunningly beautiful). I can highly recommend listening to both records in a row.
Also, speaking of beautiful: the vinyl comes as a half transparent, half gold-splatter vinyl (in contrast to part I, which was, I think, plain gold). So the whole record is not just a pleasure for your ears, but also for your eyes.
For me personally, Annisokay once again manifested their position as one of my most favourite bands. I’m very excited to see them on tour again in autumn.