The Great Mackintosh has always been a huge fan of an aptly titled band, you know the type I mean. Like Necrot, or Pissgrave, or to state the bleeding obvious example, Death. You sorta know what you are getting. Cover art is also extremely important to convey the message a band is trying to get across, but the name, well, you couldn’t help yourself but be surprised if Obituary released an album with a fucking kitten playing with wool on the cover now could you.
Actually I take that back a tad, it is well known that a certain Tardy likes to rescue animals and more credit to him for doing so, but I hardly think it will ever make the cover of an album. Yet again I am off on a tangent, So anyway, the name Tomb Mold should bring with it a certain amount of expectation for mine. So it is that we delve deeper into this tomb, and discover that they are Canadian, and they have been around for not very fucking real long as far as things go.
2016 was the date of burial, and they have had no fewer than six releases since then. Okay one was a compilation of their first two demo’s to be precise but that is still a release is it not? Good, So after their first full length “Primordial Malignity”, and another demo “Cryptic Transmissions”, expectations where running at an all time high for this one.
And now comes the bit where we finally get to talk about this one. “Yay” I hear you all shout, and a fucking big yay it should well be. To put this album into perspective is then to examine their name again. Tomb Mold, probably not that uncommon from normal mold apart from the fact that it grows in places where it is perpetually dark, and also not only covers the walls and the coffins lying within, but also clings to the very corpses buried within the caskets. Feeding on no light, it feeds on the moisture that is abundant from cracks in the walls and the very blood that has soaked through the burial garb of those within.
A pretty picture indeed, but from the first guttural filthy groan you hear from vocalist/drummer Max Klebanoff you can assure yourself that you are in some deep, deep shit by poking around down here. Derrick Vella on guitar will amplify that feeling of dread tenfold with his ability to mount riff over riff of crushing despondency in your general direction. Payson Power helps to magnify this wall of raw brutality on guitar as well, and you will wish that you had a god to pray to as the bass lines of Steve Musgrave echo relentlessly around the dank chamber and pound in your tiny skull.
Did I mention the fact that the deeper you go the more the mold seems to spread and the excellence seem to intensify? You know you want to go deeper don’t you. Yes, this very mold of which we speak in this godforsaken tomb may well be fed by drafts and waters from days gone long by, but it makes the journey all the more memorable. If you survive that is…
Excellence, the future seems bright for these lost souls. I’d hate to think of what they could achieve in the world of the living. This is exactly what we expect from top notch Death Metal, and you will go back into this tomb more than once I assure you to plumb it’s depths.
Rating: 4.5/5
The Metal Wanderlust 