Back in 2018, Annisokay blindsided me with “Good Stories.” I’m not the target audience for modern emo-leaning metalcore – wrong generation, wrong cultural wiring. I grew up in an era where “mental health” meant being told to get your act together, and anything that sounded like emotional oversharing got filed under “soppy nonsense.” Most of the current wave of pop-polished metalcore still leaves me absolutely cold.

And yet here we are in 2025, with “Abyss – The Final Chapter” on repeat.

This record is the culmination of the band’s Abyss era: fifteen tracks pulling together material from “Abyss Pt I”(2023), “Abyss Pt II” (2025) and new songs into one continuous full-length, released via Arising Empire on 21 November 2025. It’s modern, meticulous, blatantly aimed at a younger crowd – and still manages to speak to someone who normally treats this side of metal with deep suspicion.

The album opens with “Into The Abyss,” an instrumental prelude that initially had me worried. It’s cinematic, synth-heavy and almost entirely devoid of guitars – the sort of intro that often precedes forty minutes of EDM-metal mush. As a scene-setter, it works; as a statement of intent, it nearly lost me.

“Human” and “Ultraviolet” are where Annisokay start to show their hand properly. The template is familiar: Rudi Schwarzer’s harsh vocals cutting across Christoph Wieczorek’s soaring cleans, tightly programmed electronics reinforcing rather than replacing the rhythm section, and choruses built to lodge in the skull. The production – handled, as ever, by Wieczorek himself – is pristine but not brittle; there’s enough weight in the low end to keep this on the metal side of the fence, even as the hooks flirt shamelessly with pop sensibilities. 

“Throne Of The Sunset” leans a touch harder, with a more driving riff and a welcome hint of hardcore muscle underpinning the chorus. It’s the first moment on the record where I felt that old, familiar adrenaline kick: not quite a two-step part, but close enough that you can see how it would move a room.

Then comes “Calamity,” the point where my patience was really tested. The song opens as a pure pop track – airy melody, bright electronics, almost no grit in sight. I was very close to hitting skip. When the heavier elements finally drop, they do so convincingly enough, but there’s no getting away from the sense that the metal was bolted onto an already-finished pop song. It’s catchy, absolutely, and younger fans will devour it. For someone with my background, it sits right on the line between clever crossover and focus-grouped polish.

From there, “Abyss – The Final Chapter” settles into a more convincing balance of sugar and steel. “Time” and “Silent Anchor” showcase the band’s knack for pairing huge, emotionally loaded choruses with breakdowns that still feel like part of the song rather than a genre checkbox. 

“Splinters” and “My Effigy” are sharper again, with more bite in the guitars and a welcome sense that the electronics are there to create tension rather than just shimmer prettily in the background. 

In the back half, the new material is what really lifts this beyond being a glorified compilation. “Get Your Shit Together” is an interesting generational bridge: lyrically rooted in the current language of self-doubt and mental strain, but framed by a title and refrain that sound like something my own upbringing would recognise. It’s therapy-speak delivered with a drill-sergeant edge, and that tension is precisely why it works. “Never Enough” and “Oblivion” keep the pace high and the choruses sharp, even if they don’t quite hit the same emotional peak.

The closing run is where the “Final Chapter” concept really pays off. “Into The Gray” folds some of the earlier musical motifs into a darker, more reflective setting, and the Any Given Day collaboration “H.A.T.E.” injects a welcome surge of aggression without derailing the record’s overall cohesion. 

Final track “Inner Sanctum” is, by any reasonable measure, one of the strongest things the band have ever written. It circles back to “Into The Abyss,” echoing the opening textures and then detonating them into a full-blown song; the result is a satisfying sense of closure that makes the album feel like a single, deliberate arc rather than just both EPs glued together with some extras. 

Lyrically, Annisokay live firmly in the emotional trenches – isolation, anxiety, self-sabotage, the usual modern catalogue of inner battles. On paper, that should trigger all my misgivings about emo-metal theatrics. In practice, what saves it is conviction and contrast. Schwarzer’s screams don’t sound like stylised angst; they sound genuinely raw, and Wieczorek’s cleans, while polished, carry enough weight that the choruses feel cathartic rather than whiny. This is music about vulnerability that still understands the value of sounding strong.

Do I love every choice here? No. There are moments where the pop instincts and clinical production smooth away more of the rough edges than I’d like. Some breakdowns feel more “this is where the breakdown goes” than “this riff had to happen.” There are also stretches – particularly early on – where the album nudges a little too close to being a very heavy pop record rather than a metal one.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth for a grizzled, hardcore-leaning metal fan: “Abyss – The Final Chapter” is executed so well that my genre prejudices don’t really survive contact. The songwriting is impeccable, the sequencing smart, and the emotional through-line coherent across fifteen tracks. Where so much modern metalcore feels like it’s chasing trends, Annisokay sound like they fully own this hybrid space. They’ve embraced the emo and electronic elements without abandoning the fundamentals of heavy music, and they manage to do it in a way that doesn’t feel pathetic or performative, even to an older, battle-hardened listener who should – by rights – bounce straight off it.

I still wouldn’t call myself a convert to the broader wave of pop-leaning metalcore. But this is an album I’ll keep in regular rotation, which is more than I can say for most of its peers. I went into “Abyss – The Final Chapter” expecting to give it a 6 out of 10 on principle but that would be unfair. On craft alone, it earns more.

Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 21 November 2025
Label: Arising Empire

Writer: Andy

Tracklist:

1. Into The Abyss
2. Human
3. Ultraviolet
4. Throne Of The Sunset
5. Calamity
6. Time
7. Silent Anchor
8. Splinters
9. My Effigy
10. Get Your Shit Together
11. Never Enough
12. Oblivion
13. Into The Gray
14. H.A.T.E. (feat. Any Given Day)
15. Inner Sanctum