Anika Abyss
Released Apr 4, 2025 Sacred Bones Records
Early read 2 professional reviews Updated Nov 30, 2025
Broadly positive consensus
Early read based on 2 professional reviews. Anika's Abyss confronts alienation with sharpened percussion and a coruscating low end, earning an 80/100 consensus across two professional reviews.
How ChoruScore worksCritics' Top Tracks
The songs critics returned to most
Abyss
1 critic mention
“propelled by coruscating bass and smashing, bashing, skittering drums” — Dusted Magazine
Hearsay
2 critic mentions
“This third album from the British/German artist known as Anika is far more driving than 2021’s Change” — Dusted Magazine
Oxygen
1 critic mention
“Oxygen’ follows, a slow suffocation rendered in sound” — The Quietus
Full critic consensus
Anika's Abyss confronts alienation with sharpened percussion and a coruscating low end, earning an 80/100 consensus across two professional reviews. Critics frame the record as a tightly wound statement rather than an expansive experiment, and they point to specific songs as proof: “Hearsay” emerges repeatedly for its surgical take on media distortion, while the title cut “Abyss” and “Oxygen” are praised for their driving rhythms and suffocating atmospheres.
Across the professional reviews, commentators note a tension between rawness and polish - restraint in analogue production lets one-note drones and minimal arrangements register as urgent rather than spare. Reviewers consistently praise the album's percussive intensity and post-punk urgency, with smashing, bashing drums and a coruscating bass that push tracks forward. Critics agree that the record channels political anxiety and a sense of public fracture, casting songs like “Hearsay” as dispatches from a fractured public sphere.
While both reviews rate Abyss highly for its focused momentum, they also imply limits: the same minimalism that yields claustrophobic power can feel stern and uncompromising. That tension is the album's defining trait, situating Abyss as a compelling, if deliberately unvarnished, addition to Anika's catalog and an essential point of entry for anyone asking what the best songs on Abyss are.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Hearsay
Abyss
Honey
Walk Away
Into the Fire
Oxygen
Out of the Shadows
One Way Ticket
Last Song
Buttercups
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 3 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
Anika presents Abyss as a claustrophobic document, where the best tracks - notably “Hearsay” and “Oxygen” - function as dispatches from a fractured public sphere. The reviewer’s prose is coolly analytical and unforgiving, praising how “Hearsay” dissects media distortion and how “Oxygen” renders slow, suffocating psychicscapes. Across the record, Anika’s restrained, analogue production and one-note drones make these songs stand out as bleak, focused statements rather than showy experiments. This is an album whose best songs succeed by refusing polish, choosing raw presence over spectacle.
Key Points
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The best song, particularly "Hearsay", is best because it incisively dissects media distortion with taut minimalism.
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The album’s core strength is its raw, analogue production that foregrounds presence and political anxiety over polish.
Themes
Critic's Take
Anika keeps the pressure high on Abyss, a record whose best tracks - notably “Abyss” and “Hearsay” - seize post-punk urgency with coruscating bass and smashing, bashing drums. The reviewer leans on terse, energetic description, praising how songs like “Abyss” propel forward while others sharpen the album's percussive intensity. In that voice the record reads as less introspective than 2021's Change and more a statement of momentum, which is why these tracks register as the album's top moments. The result is a vividly driven set of songs that answer the question of the best songs on Abyss with insistent force.
Key Points
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The title track “Abyss” is best because it embodies the record's coruscating bass and propulsive drums.
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The album's core strengths are its relentless rhythms, post-punk urgency, and percussive intensity.