First try by Tomb Slab.
Two years after its formation, the band comprising Dean Lettice (vocals, The Infernal Sea), James Caygill (guitar, The Atrocity Exhibit, Hideous Crawling Abomination), John Hunter (bass, live for Oneiros), and Kez Whelan (drums, Unbeknownst, Shrykull) unveils its debut album, Tomb Slab, in collaboration with Road to Masochist Records.
They kick things off with dissonance on Kingdom of Tyranny, an oppressively suffocating opener that makes use of highly effective doom/sludge tropes to deliver a thick yet catchy sound, even throwing in a few driving accelerations to let the vocalist scream. Leads are also quite macabre, imbuing certain sections with an air of dread, just as on The Butcher, which quickly takes over and delivers a thick groove with equally aggressive tones, though it knows when to slow down to snap our necks during a far less palatable section. We continue in a similar vein with Rawhead, a track with some interesting stoner roots that soften certain passages a bit, then the band takes the opportunity to make its riffs almost screeching before moving on to What’s Below Remains Below, the next track, which proves to be relatively accessible at first listen. Even when the screaming resumes, the track is quite catchy, but it’s fairly short and quickly gives way to Tomb of Flesh, which offers a contrast between smoky yet relatively calm doom and vocals that are as sickening as can be. Toils of the Unclean Spirit is the final track, and unsurprisingly, it closes out the album with slow, oppressive riffs, strictly adhering to the genre’s conventions to deliver a sound that’s as ferocious as it is dense, allowing the guitar to slip in a few piercing notes before an almost playful final burst.
Tomb Slab has pulled it off, and although its members all come from different backgrounds, doom/sludge seems to run through the project’s veins! It’s a shame that Tomb Slab is a bit short, especially for this style, but the compositions are promising.
80/100
