We are pleased to welcome the Abbey to the Doomstar family and announce their appearance at Qstock Festival!! For booking inquiries in the United Kingdom & Europe (excluding Finland), please get in touch with zoltan@doomstarbookings.com
Aleister Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema was located in Sicily, Italy, and functioned as ground zero for many of the occultist’s most complex and groundbreaking hedonistic pursuits. Here, Crowley codified his ritual practices and took his concept of “Magick” to new, unforeseen levels. He rebranded the temple as “Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum,” translating to “A college towards the Holy Spirit.” But the Abbey of Thelema was not without its controversy: A young disciple died in 1922 after contracting typhoid fever from the drinking water. And a year later, Crowley was evicted by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s regime, yet the mystery and intrigue behind the Abbey of Thelema remain.
It was only appropriate, then, that Jesse Heikkinen, a veteran of the Finnish music scene and a solo artist under the Iterum Nata banner, branded his newest musical pursuit as The Abbey. Drawing lyrical inspiration from esoteric organizations, their beliefs and his own practices, Heikkinen and co-lead vocalist Natalie Koskinen (Shape of Despair) weaved ritualistic tales from the darkest corners of themselves to pair with music that is a provocative, alluring kaleidoscope of dark, heavy rock. The result is the mystical Word of Sin, The Abbey’s nine-song debut long-player.
The Abbey tale began when Heikkinen generated the sudden urge to try his hand at singing in a doom metal band after laying down guest vocals for fellow countrymen Fuzzifer. His idea was to form a doom metal band with “big vocals” — a project for fun’s sake that would thrive off writing from the heart and improvisation. Those plans involved former Sentenced and The Man-Eating Tree drummer Vesa Ranta — the first name that came to Heikkinen’s mind for the project.
Listen to the Abbey via https://linktr.ee/abbeyceremonial
