It’s been over two years since I last reviewed Tombstones for Ave Noctum, their mighty third album, ‘Red Skies and Dead Eyes’ scoring highly as it blasted out a wall of heavy traditional doom without compromise. So, has the intervening time mellowed the sound of this trio of Norse metal warriors? Has if fuck! Their sound is now so heavy and full of angst that I can only shudder at what they might have gone through in the past months to lead to such a blasting and anger filled sound!
‘Barren Fields’ opens the sonic assault with a title that sums up the bleakness of the sound, the band evolving from the merry light sounds of Electric Wizard and Black Sabbath, and swimming down into the depths of gloom that is inhabited by such aural predators as Conan, long looping hypnotic riffs interspersed with shouts that would have Kirk Weinstein reaching for the Covonia if he ever spat up such harsh tones (other cough syrups are available)! ‘And When The Heathen Strive, Vargariis Rise’ follows, a track that at under nine minutes unlike all others on the album, albeit only just, practically sprints past, at least sprinting in the way a condemned soul must march towards purgatory, the screams of the vocals matching the cries of the damned. ‘Oceans of Consciousness’ breaks the mould, blasting out the blocks with a combinations of blasting drums and black metal guitar histrionics before settling down into a more familiar dread laden pace, the bass taking a lead in the mix with a thunderous groove. Of course, at well over ten minutes, there are opportunities aplenty for time changes, guitars alternately machine gunning and then blasting out sustained notes, matched by artillery barrages of drums and sludge laden harsh vocals, inter-spaced with almost solitary funereal beats.
‘The Dark High’ is in many ways the simplest and lightest track on the album, nods being given to the godfather of the riff Tony Iommi with portions of the track crying out for the listener to raise their eye-line from their shoes and move their heads in time to the thumping beats. This comparative relief is short lived, if you can call a ten minute track short lived, and the gloom returns with ‘Underneath The Earth’ a track that occasionally invokes the earliest darkest tracks of Cathedral, all with a large added dose of industrial grade ketamine.
As with their preceding album, Tombstones have presented the listener with six intense and heavy tracks, but with each individual number now stretching out to the ten minute mark, the band are able to explore their dark sides further and plumb the depths of Doom in a style that makes their prior releases seem positively upbeat, radio friendly and commercial. What made them move down this dark road, I do not know, and the bleak sound may well alienate those who like their doom only so doomy, if that’s a word? Personally, I like it, and look forward to hearing how the band evolve with their next album, a release that I feel sure will happen with Tombstones’ continuing creativity, although whether it can get even darker, I couldn’t even guess.
(8/10 Spenny)
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