Noothgrush : " Man isHis Own Tormentor"

From the early sludge scene ofthe 90s, the band helped to bridge metal into the underground hardcore scene. Members of this band went on to play in bands such as Graves at Sea, Dystopia, Phobia, and Ghoul.  This album comes from their more obscure7" releases, which, unless you found them on a merch table at a punk show, were out of reach even if you tried to order them from an ad in Maximum Rock n Roll. There wasno interst so a being being undergorund was almsotlikethe hunt for an occult tome rather than being able to go on a site like DEAD AIR AT THE PULPIT and request it in the chat.  This makes this album more important for all practical purposes; many of these songs are just seeing the light of day, so I will review it as such.

Right from the start, you can here how this sort of thing took inspiration from Eyehategod is the scathing vocal approach. There isa Mr Rogers sample going into "Dianoga".The guitar lumbers with a doomy bleakness, and the lyrics are inarticulated screams of anguish. It is oppressively heavy and has stood thetest of time. "DPS " has more movement and groove, making it the best of the bunch so far. "Useless' has more punch and purpose, with the vocals being more distinct. 

In the live portion of this album, they play the "Imperial March," which they weave into their own song. Live version ofthe previously mentioned songs I am not going to review again, as I am more concerned with the songwriting of them to begin with. "Sith" stays with the Star Wars theme. It is a noisy, harrowing sludge song that flirts with the darkness of doom. "Erode the Person" starts of with the reluctant thump of a bass. And heads them in a doomy direction. I like the depressive touches the guitars add. Dynamics the songdrones a bit. 

"Junland Waste" works well as it marries the downtrodden density with more motion. Amid the rumble, the guitar has a lingering life to it. Their cover of Celtic Frost's "Procreation of the Wicked" feels like they learned the main riff, then defaulted to more death metal vocals. "Friends of Mine" has the best production value and lingers with a deliberate stomp that lurches out from the shadows. I have always said that sludge is what happens when punks try to play doom, and I think this proves my point. I will give this album a 9.

psy397

DEATHGRAVE : "Hell is Evil"

 I gave 2023's "It's Only Midnight" an 8, but I have been listening to more grindcore since then, so I might have more of an appreciation when they veer off the death metal grooves into chaos. The title track that opens the album certainly falls into place better than what they did last time around, with a more polished sound in the studio. It is also three minutes, so they give themselves more time here to develop the song rather than just dealing in angry bursts. "Hard to Swallow" finds even a very dark, deliberate, doomy riff arising to lumber over things. Some of the members of Graves at Sea are in this band, so that should not be surprising. Some of the vocals sound like they could be from a Carnivore album they way they are shouted. 

"I am Here" takes death metal fury and runs it through a grindcore filter but with thrash attitude. Three songs in and it is very clear song writing has been made more of a priority. The vocals are more varied; there are the shrill blackened shriek and low death gurgle, but other variations on that snarled spectrum. "Born From Death " is the first song where brutality is allowed to reign over all else. With a dissonant punk riff clanging in the background at times ot break it up. "Smaller and Smaller" is darker and more harrowing as it takes things in a more sludge-ridden direction. The first five songs are already more dynamic than the last album, and this is with them even descending into blast beats on "Smaller and Smaller," which at almost four minutes is one of the album's longest songs. 

"It's Only Midnight" finds the vocals serving more purpose in the chorus to make it work and a large dose of thrash riding the song. "Yaws 3D" finds them playing a punk-tinged death metal which, in some ways, is the definition of grindcore. "You Pain is Ready" is a more extreme beating to your ears. They rip into "I Won't See You in Heaven" before the bass takes over. The dense bass tone brings things down into the doomy crush of the lingering tempo. It's darker and heavier like this than when they are spazzing out. Many moments on this album remind me of Goatwhore; when they speed up on this song, it is one of them. The last song finds them launching into rough-edged death metal but with the vocals varying in levels of coarseness, so kinda like Entombed. I will give this album a 9.5 and see how it grows on me, but here is what happens when grindcore grows up. Out on Tank Crimes August 21st.  

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the Top 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time - 40- 31

Ok, we are continuing the countdown of the top 50 heaviest albums of all time. The next ten albums represent most sub genres of metal, black metal, sludge, death metal, thrash and grind core. Yes there will be more doom just in future installments.


40- Pantera - "the Great Southern Trendkill"


Yes "Far Beyond Driven" is a more in your face aggressive album, but aggression alone does not make heavy. This album is heavier due to the emotional darkness poured into it as the band hit bottom with their addictions. 




39-Mutilation Rites - "Harbinger"

In the previous installment of this list I touched on the elements that sometimes cause black metal to not be as heavy as it could, when it works solely off speed, drone and atmosphere. This album brings density and grime to show how heavy it can be when it's done right. 


 




38-Amenra- "Mass VI"

This Belgian sludge ban's mastery of loud to soft dynamics makes them more sonically powerful than their peers. This album really captures that. 




37-Otargos - "No God No Satan"

French black metal that is equal parts dark and abrasive. I do not believe in evil, but it if were to have a sound this album would capture it . 





36-Deathspell Omega- "Paracletus"


This is not just another French Black metal band , this is THE French black metal band. These guys are like a heavier version of Emperor. By heavier in this instance I mean invoking chaos with angular dissonance






35-S.O.D- "Speak English or Die"



This 1985 classic would never fly if it had been released to the tender souls of 2020. They came out during the cross over thrash movement, but along with Napalm Death are the fore fathers of modern grindcore


.



34 Bolt Thrower - "Realm of Chaos"



This 1989 album storms into battle like a more violent version of Morbid Angel. Density and intensity are the weapons they are bringing into to battle here with more of a stomp than a gallop.



 


33- Cobalt -"Eater of Birds"

This blackened sludge project brought a great deal of thrash influence to the table with their 2007 album that recalls the wailing and gnashing of teeth associated with a descent into hell. 






32-Graves at Sea -' the Curse That Is "

The volume and power of these riffs swallows you into their murky depths and pulverizes you with their nastiness not unlike being sucked into a black hole, it's just done with more bong smoke here. 






31- Full of Hell- " Rudiments of Mutilation"


This 2013 album is an example that in todays world grindcore is created when a hard core band goes over to the dark side.

Mirrors For Psychic Warfare : "See What I Become"

Right from the first few seconds of noisy atmosphere I can tell this is the perfect album for anxiety ridden moments at 5 AM after waking up from a night mare. "Tomb Puncher" is the first actual song. Scott Kelly is singing over electronic beats, but in a manner than would not be totally out of place on a Neurosis album, just coupled with more effects. "Body Ash " works off the same formula , but is not as effective after already hearing this dynamic. I think on "Flat Rats in the Alley"  what they do works better due to the fact it's darker so creates a different shade of intensity. On "Thing of Knives" things start to run together with the song that comes after. It starts off with more noisy ambiance which for me fades into the background since it's an effect and not part of an actual song, until a beat begins to form a minute and a half later. When the chant of "my reasons where unknown here" comes in then you are re-engaged.

"Crooked Teeth" starts more minimal and darkly builds into more of a throb as Kelly chants under this. Vocally he is pretty simple here. At first I was thinking this is almost like the industrial album you might have always wanted from Nick Cave, but Cave sings more and displays a more fluid range when he does. This is almost more like spoken word. Due to this mono chromatic vocal approach it causes a song like "Death Cart" that might have more going on musically sound like all the other songs. "Coward Heart" is almost like a sounds from the haunted house sound effects album. It work off of creaks and various glitches. His gruff spoken word is more at a Leonard Cohen like whisper.

I'll round this down to a 7.5 as the songs tend to be rather a one dimensional drone thanks to the vocals that just work off this gruff spoken word thing. This album is pretty dark and atmospheric. The beats don't always converge around these themes to propel the songs in an effective industrial direction. If you are looking for some dark and gritty background music where the spoken vocals would provide  much of a distraction then check it out. If you are wanting something as heavy as Neurosis or Graves at Sea then you are looking in the wrong direction.

Shrine of the Serpent : "Entropic Disillusion"

The death doom keeps coming. I can tell when a sub-genre is gaining steam as it starts surfacing in more bios from p/r companies whether it applies or not. In this case not as much as they might want it to. This band features old drummer from Graves at Sea, so that pulled me in. I like the fact there is a very dismal mood and it's more on the doom side of the equation than the death metal one. The first song is an instrumental. It does a pretty good job because I didn't begin to wonder when the vocals were coming in until I was almost five minutes in. There is a more delicate funeral doom atmosphere to "Hailing the Enshrined" .  It does build up into a more sludge like pounding, while still retaining the fact it is doom.

 They do tap into more death metal on "Hope's Aspersion". This is also where it begins to become a little bit of a blur to me and the steam rolling density makes it fade more into a passing white noise rumbling by. There use of vocals feels like a more death metal like take on the roar Neurosis used to use."Desecrated Tomb" took a few listens for me to really pay attention. It is more doom than not, though the band's previously displayed grasp of doom came across as more compelling. "Epoch of Annihilation" is another instrumental, thought it is armed withe more twists and turns , making for a more interesting listen than the first one. "Rending the Psychic Void" closes the album. It moves at a sluggish throb riding the line more between doom and sludge than death metal.

This is only their debut album, and while they are veterans, playing these brand of metal with these musicians is still a work in progress though one that is off to a good start. I think they need to go with their heart and plug into some of that more melodic sorrow they capture at the beginnings of songs. More vocals might be something for them to think about as well, though growls tend to be more of an after thought for most bands. I'll give this one an 8, it comes out APRIL 23 on Momento Mori.

Top 10 Sludge albums of 2016

So this list is somewhat deceptive in it's title, since we are throwing any thing in that is not dark enough to be doom, holds too true to it's punk roots or is more suited to smoking weed to than languishing in the graveyard. That doesn't mean there is not legit sludge all over this list, as sludge is the dirty crust punk cousin of doom. Some sludge bands have just grown up and gotten more rock n roll over time so what sludge is has changed some over the years and this year's crop is certainly evidence of that fact. Some of these bands might even think they are doom or have gotten their start as a doom band , but now have smoked too much pot to kept it that dark. So here are the top ten sludge albums of 2016.

10- Big Business -"Command Your Weather"

 One half Karp and on half Murder City Devils, there is more of the thundering noise rock that Karp made and less of the dark punk the Devils dealt out. Their newest album finds them leaning more in a hard rock direction. Like if you took all of the beer commercials out of the Foo-fighters. Their songs are compact like punk rock and rumble with burly fuzz. The vocals are a mid register tenor that remind a little of Blue Oyster Cult. they capture some powerful sounds and more melodic than I thought they were going to be going into this, but their songwriting skills are more along the line of hopeful jams which can be a gamble in regards to how they come together to form actual songs and not just ideas of what might sound cool if they were part of an actual song. But it had enough golden moments to earn it's place here.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/07/big-business-command-your-weather.html


9-Church of Misery - "And Then There Were None" 

 Here is the 6th full-length, that continues the band's tradition of penning songs about serial killers. The have a much more stoner metal sound on this one.The bassist Tatsu Mikami forges ahead with a lineup featuring Scott Carlson from Repulsion, contributing the vocals to this one. They are delivered with a Cathedral snarl. The guitars are handled by Dave Szulkin from Mark of the Devil / Blood Lust. The drums are pounded by Eric Little of Earthride. Production wise this album sounds good, it adheres to the retro sound required by this kind of thing.  The vocals are up front and add more punch to songs like "Make Them Die Slowly".  The vocals are narrated in more of a Tom Araya manner, never really committing to a full scale growl to keep the lyrics the focal point.If you are a fan of the band and reconciled with their more rock direction then you too will enjoy this. There's some pretty great guitar playing in places and whats not to love about serial killers?



 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/church-of-misery-and-then-there-were.html

8- Fistula- "Shape of-doom-to-cumm"


 I guess the same could be said here as despite the title of this album, it's far too up tempo to be doom, and dirty in more of a trailer trash punk manner than dirty like raw black metal and nothing is blackened about this.They do get closer to doom on "Sabbath Wants to Do a Split with Me", but with that song title how could they not? The guitars sound big enough on this song to live up to the title. When this band's name is brought up in conversation I liken them to a more meth-ed out version of Acid Bath and that fits pretty well on this song, of course without the benefit of having the croon of Dax Riggs come in


. http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/11/fistula-shape-of-doom-to-cumm.html

7-Bossk- "Audio Noir"


 Here is an album that could very well fly under your radar if you aren't versed in these guys. It starts off as a dream. These guys have an incredible guitar tone. While it is very similar to that used by many post-rock bands, they really have it dialed in right on this album. This British band has been at it for a decade, so they have had plenty of time to get it right. The drummer is a solid pocket groover that serves the song and keeps it moving while the guitars take you down stream. They hold off until the final minute of the first song to drop the metal crunch in. They handle this is a very tasteful manner. They do not let up on the distortion as this carries over in the second song "Heliopause". This one rumbles with boots of lead. More stoned sludge than doom as it doesn't have a sorrowful current. Vocals come in that are scornfully screamed, the more hard core side of sludge. They are mixed back into the mountains of guitar and sometimes eclipsed. While I am glad this album is not just instrumental the vocals go along with the riff and really don't contribute a ton.



http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/04/bossk-audio-noir.html



6- Crowbar- "Serpent Only Lies"



I remember back when I first heard "All I Had I Gave" I thought these are some big ugly dudes playing big ugly music that was heavy as fuck. Going to back to listen to that song, it's still a good song, but not as heavy as I remembered it. But then again  the verses to "I am the Storm" reflect back to a similar tempo as "All I Had I Gave" , the chorus might not resonate like the song from the 90's did , but is still well done and is very much true to who this band is. The album opened really strong so I think the first two songs are more powerful and flawlessly crafted. I prefer when the band relaxes back into a more sludged out take on doom with songs like "Surviving the Abyss". When the vocals deliver the more husky melody that are tapping into something more unique than when they hit the more barked passages.


 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/10/crowbar-serpent-only-lies.html

5- Sourvein- "Aquatic Occult"



 My only history with this band is the split they did with Graves at Sea. I'm  much more impressed with this album. "Avian" is the first song that feels like they are taking the plunge into the album with "Tempest" feeling more like an intro. Though most of the songs just break the two minute mark. This is a relief and proves that in order to play doom effectively you don't have to open the flood gates to ponderous ten minute plus behemoths. The fact that two members of this band were also a part of Buzz-Oven can be felt on the oppressive stomp to "Ocypuss".  "Aquanaut"  provides are more traditional doom counter point to this beating previously rained down upon your ears. "Hymn to Poseidon" has the melody submerged beneath the tides of distortion. "Mermaids" swims in more stoner rock waters not unlike those that older Queens of the Stoneages once bathed in. They attack "Urchins" like sharks with the scent of blood. This song's doom tendencies keep the bongs bubbling with the same intensity of Electric Wizard. 


http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/04/sourvein-aquatic-occult.html



4-Coke Goat- "Drugs and Animals"



;Everything now is a hybrid of something. These guys perhaps do not successfully create a doom metal album, but more importantly create some heavy and angry music that has a atmosphere to it when needed. It roars with an apocalyptic rage fitting of the current mood on my Facebook feed spurned on by the generation of sore losers, so it's good music to get tear gassed to on a protest, though if you are that kind of a hippy then you are going to be scared of the big chords anyway.


 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/11/cokegoat-drugs-and-animals.html

3-Graves At Sea- "the Curse That is"


 I wanted something more to sink my doom hungry jaws into. Doom begs to be questioned here right from the eleven minute title track that opens the album.  It's an odd evolution that includes the bigger production value this album has. It finds them thundering into your ears with something more akin to a stoner rock version of "Through Sliver and Blood" era Neurosis. Some evolution an be expected considering the line-up changes that have yo-yoed the band about. The vocals are still mean in their ample grit coated screams. The guitar has warmed up a bit. Perhaps it is the time they took in the studio to perfect their tone versus previous releases which have had a rawer, angrier sound. It's not a deal breaker. I can appreciate the expanded musical qualities they invested into the songs here, it is just going to take a little getting used to.


http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/graves-at-sea-curse-that-is.html

2-Neurosis- "Fire Within Fires"



One of the most important things I had to adjust in my expectations of this album was thinking that while they are certainly the pioneers of sludge metal, Neurosis is no longer really a metal band. They do eventually get heavy once the vocals kick in on "Bending Light" which opens the albums. They spend the first half of the song wandering around a dark and trippy landscape. These are sounds that please my ears, but it's not "Souls at Zero" or "Through Sliver and Blood". So if that is what you want then there is some acceptance that needs to take place as a listener. I think the direction they are headed on this album is truer to who they are as a band than the more Pink Floydian journey of "Honor Found in Decay".They album is heavy enough to earn it's place here.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/09/neurosis-fires-within.html

1- Fistula "Longing For Infection"


 Here is an album that grew on me, originally ranked as an 8, I'll say it's a 10 now that it has earned so many listens and I can now appreciate how raw and rooted in punk, this Ohio band is more about nastiness and being loud more than adhering to the expectations of any genres. When their singer snarls about some one being stabbed in the face forty time, he proves to be a storyteller who needs little suspension of disbelief. The verse to grind down into a more metal groove, but this feels more real than most metal. The samples of news stories covering sexually assaulted corpses, gives this a similar shade of gruesome glory that Acid Bath once had. He gurgles lyrics like "mommy told me not to play with dead things" to create a wonderfully morbid web of white trash horror stories, this could be "the Hills Have Eyes" set to music.

The Top 10 Metal albums of 2016...so far

Ok, this one took longer than our pop/rock list. One or two of these bands could have crossed over into that list, but they have enough balls to be here. These are ranked by what I have listened to the most weighed against the impact of the album and how it scored here at the blog. But it could have been a master piece , but if it didn't inspire me to listen to it a ton then an album I listened to more would be better. Keeping up? Then lets move on to the best Metal albums that the year has offered us so far. If you want to hear more there is a link to each full review with media.

10- Metal Church - "XI"

 This one made it over to the iPod and got more listens than Ihsahn whose album certainly should get an honorable mention here. It's perhaps not had the staying power that some of the other albums ranked higher have. They came closer to the top of the heap than many of their peers who have come back this year to make it feel more like 1988 than 2016.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/metal-church-xi.html

9- Abbath- st

Immortal has been slugging it out longer than Queensryche over who owns the rights to their name leading guitarist and front man Abbath Doom Occulta decided to just release this album under his own name enlisting Creature aka Kevin Foley who is Benighted's drummer to pound along with Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell. So a Immortal / Gorgoroth super group is what we are looking at here. It is though the material on this album are the songs that were written as the follow up to the 2009 full-length "All Shall Fall". It is currently not in rotation on my iPod, but I will give it another shot as the album captures this kind of aggression well and the time I did spend with it colored my black heart impressed.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/01/abbath-st.html

8- Howls of Ebb - "Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows"

 This project out of San Francisco is bringing some of the wonderment back to death metal. Death metal all too often defaults to re-hashing what Incantation and Morbid Angel have already done. Little time is wasted digging into the meat of the metal on this one. The helter skelter sense of groove and trippy atmosphere that make this band so awesome are all intact.Overall this albums brings to life everything I could want from them. More progressive than just death metal loaded up on a ton of drugs. The bass playing is some of death metal's best this side of Cynic, who lets face it are off in the land of elves with Rush at this point in time. The experimentation is tempered with aggression, though it's not just a monochrome brutality. http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/howls-of-ebb-cursus-impasse-pendlomic.html

7- Eight Bells - "Landless"

 Things have changed for this band since "Captain's Daughter". I felt they had potential on that one and here they have fully realized. The drumming shows vast improvement as they open with the doomy "Hating" . The title track finds the band taking on more of a trippy post- metal ambiance to a  riff that feels like it spirals down before ebbing down into a softer sung section.The vocal melodies are stronger on this album as well and more love and care went into the song writing. Any doubts as to the metallic nature of this band is put to rest by the blast beat section this song hangs on with the vocals taking on more of a harsher growl when it slows into more of a punk beat.The song does drone me out a little though I got sucked into the black hole of the inner webs reading about the whole Phil Anselmo thing just when they hit the section of minimalist ambiance.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/01/eight-bells-landless.html

6-Voivod - "Post Society"

 Voivod has always been light years ahead of their time. Since "Target Earth" the band has locked into a sound that takes the classic tones from "Dimension Hatross " and pushes it forward in a modern production. This ep is the quality of both songwriting and production as "Target Earth" in fact the arrangements might be even more progressive,  like the surreal breakdown on the title track that kicks the ep off. They have always been able to shift in a very organic manner from one movement to the next . What amazes me more upon hearing this is how true they are to their legacy even though half of the original members are not on this recording. Chewy and Rocky did comprise the live band on their last pass through the states with Napalm Death and both really do justice to the Voivod legacy.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/01/voivod-post-society.html

5- Anthrax-"For All the Kings"

 Anthrax used to be one of my favorite bands and to this day "Among the Living " is without a doubt one of the best metal albums ever with "Spreading the Disease" not too far behind. I hung tough with the band for the first six albums, even liking Jon Bush's first album. Then we grew apart.  "Worship Music"  saw the return of singer Joey Belladonna, but I never gave it a shot. Age might have helped Anthrax here , because with age Belladonna's voice is lower than even on "Persistence of Time", but it gives him more aggression, which might have helped on albums like the almost too happy "State of Euphoria". There is younger blood injected in the band as Jonathan Donais from Shadows Fall is now in the band.They exceeded my expectation and this album is still in rotation.

http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/01/anthrax-for-all-kings.html

4- Graves At Sea- "The Curse That is "

 I had been waiting for these guys to drop a full length as the splits and eps were great, but wanted something more to sink my doom hungry jaws into. Doom begs to be questioned here right from the eleven minute title track that opens the album.  It's an odd evolution that includes the bigger production value this album has. It finds them thundering into your ears with something more akin to a stoner rock version of "Through Sliver and Blood" era Neurosis. Some evolution an be expected considering the line-up changes that have yo-yoed the band about. The vocals are still mean in their ample grit coated screams. The guitar has warmed up a bit. Perhaps it is the time they took in the studio to perfect their tone versus previous releases which have had a rawer, angrier sound.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/graves-at-sea-curse-that-is.html

3- Katatonia- "the Fall of Hearts"
 The gloomy Swedes were almost sent to the pop rock list, but have enough metal on this to make here even though they have pretty much become a prog band at this point. The Opeth like cadence that builds the opener when the distortion is stomped on makes sense considering the acrobatics the guitars have already engaged in leading up to that point. "In Absentina" ear Porcupine Tree might also come to mind. This is not to say there is not plenty of the band's own DNA all over this song. Jonas' vocals are unmistakable.The album is very crisp from a production stand point, which lightens the shade of gray cast over these songs. Jonas doesn't have the same melancholic desperation fueling his vocals, yet he doesn't stray from his style.It's weird as it's not as dark as previous releases, but packs more of a punch.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/05/katatonia-fall-of-hearts.html

2-Nails- "You Will Never Be One of Us"

I have predicted 2016 as the year grind-core  and power-violence breaks through into the metal mainstream. What Weekend Nachos failed to deliver is being jack hammered into your face by this band.  Their guitar tone is as nasty as you can get and still play riffs that hold together actual songs. Even then when I used the word songs here I am describing sharp bursts of anger. Grind-core has never been my forte, typically because of the genre's limited range of dynamic expression. Coloring with only the red crayon of anger can limit what you do, this band from Southern Los Angeles colors with this crayon so well, I know what I'm in for and can hold on for the jolting ride.The heaviest album on the list for sure.

 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/06/nails-you-will-never-be-one-of-us.html

1-Tombs-"All Empires Fall"

 What happens on Tombs new album should not come as a surprise considering how they have evolved with each album. The last album might not have been as dark as the previous, but Mike Hill and company continue to evolve. With the inclusion of Fade Kainer into the fold on "All Empires Fall" it made me think the industrial influence that has lurking under the surface would rise like Godzilla. This is not the case. They make it clear the metal isn't going anywhere. They kick the fucking door down with a neck crushing riff.The only thing wrong with this release is the fact it's an EP rather than a full length, because it leaves me still wanting more.
 http://abysmalhymns.blogspot.com/2016/03/tombs-all-empires-fall.html

Graves At Sea : "the Curse That Is"

I had been waiting for these guys to drop a full length as the splits and eps were great, but I wanted something more to sink my doom hungry jaws into. Doom begs to be questioned here right from the eleven minute title track that opens the album.  It's an odd evolution that includes the bigger production value this album has. It finds them thundering into your ears with something more akin to a stoner rock version of "Through Sliver and Blood" era Neurosis. Some evolution an be expected considering the line-up changes that have yo-yoed the band about. The vocals are still mean in their ample grit coated screams. The guitar has warmed up a bit. Perhaps it is the time they took in the studio to perfect their tone versus previous releases which have had a rawer, angrier sound. It's not a deal breaker. I can appreciate the expanded musical qualities they invested into the songs here, it is just going to take a little getting used to.

They slow enough on "Dead Eyes" to give them a somewhat more doom oriented sound. The twisting curves of the riff have a more rock n roll feel to them. They are well executed. The lyrics are more intelligible here even in their most scorned and rancid throat scraping rasps, which call out some very memorable choruses. That is what song writing is about after all no matter how heavy you want to be. It needs to bring you back to the songs over and over again. The demented slant to the vocals which drew me into the band in the first place is still there, though much more familiar in the second song. There is an almost Iron Maiden like cadence to how the riffs dance in the song's final act. While it never gets to the happy go lucky arena rock vibe of classic metal the influence can not be denied even with the shadows cast by Alex Carson's violin.

The crazed vocals carry a higher rasp on "Tempest". This song is attacked with a swampy fury not unlike that off Eyehategod. While it is very powerful it is also the most straight forward of the first three songs. The violin returns to accompany the clean guitar that opens the fifteen sprawl that is " Ashes Made Her Beautiful". It lurches into the deliberate pound of the verse, that offers up some bong boiling worship to the path Sabbath paved. In sections this finds the band at the most melodic I have ever heard them play. The violin earns its place on the album when the song reaches the six minute mark. The vocals into a more haunting lower rasp. At this point in the album the mood here  finds the band digging themselves down  the closest to doom as they have come the entire album.

Though it's pretty punchy the more upbeat "This Mental Sentence" has more of an almost rock n roll swagger to it. They get back to down and dirty basics on "Waco 177". It's the kind of heavy metal depravity that I pretty much expect from the band. Lyrically it pays homage to the fall of David Koresh. Serial Killers tend to get way more love from metal bands than cult leaders so it's a nice change of pace. "Luna Lupus Venator" is an acoustic instrumental interlude leading into the last song "Minimum Slave". I'm not too worried about the fourteen minute run time of the last song, as none of these songs have felt like they are dragging. It's a burly stoner metal riff, that has a sinew groove that recalls Tool or Kyuss to me. Though funny enough most people who will praise this band would slam Tool. The vocals do keep these guys more firmly placed in the metal camp. I wouldn't say the band jams, but they do allow the groove to wind around them.  They do crush it with a pretty molten riff. I'll still round this album  up to a 9.5 as it's going to take some getting used to the change of sound, but I do find myself wanting to go back for further listens despite the long winded songs, so something is working.