ALBUM REVIEW: SAVAGE GOLD - TOMBS

Artist: Tombs
CD: Savage Gold ( June 10th, 2014)
Label: Relapse Records

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Described as one of the year’s most anticipated albums, Tombs’ third studio album, Savage Gold, more than lives up to its billing. Those who thought the black metal quartet had reached the peak of its powers with their heavily acclaimed 2011 project ‘Path Of Totality’ will be happy to be proved wrong as they feast on the brilliance of the 10 nuggets that make up Savage Gold. Dripping with black poetry, which frontman Mike Hill delivers with hellish aplomb, this could yet be the band’s most solid offering to date. Stylistically Hill, Andrew Hernandez, Garett Bussanick and Ben Brand remain true to their heavy post-punk roots and give their fans liberal helpings of their potent handiwork on the instruments.

The stage is set for a voyage into the dark abyss with thundering drums as “Thanatos” rolls out of your speakers. “Does the soul remain, does the spirit die? When flesh decays does the will prevail” growls Hill in a guttural mumble that spooks with its quietness. And there’s nowhere to run from the flaming guitars that quickly envelop your conscious in a wall of liquid fire. The kicks, toms and cymbal explode, pounding your ears with raucous melodies you quickly get addicted to.

The guitars do the singing in “Seance” while Hill fashions a sinister image of memories as a spine-chilling self-consuming serpent. The chugging gets heavier and heavier as Hill and Bussanick strangle chord after raging chord out of their chosen instruments of self expression.

“Echoes” is one of the mellower of the ten cuts that make up Savage Gold and here we finally get to discover what Mike’s voice sounds like unmasked from the listless roars. You slowly slip into a trance as the guitars blaze on and on for close to eight minutes, providing highlights to Hill’s vivid imagery of darkness, echoes and bleak eternity. The hypnotizing rhythms continue in “Deathtripper” which thrives on the dry revving of Brand’s bass guitar and a placid drumline. Hill comes over as a doomsayer howling through a scrunched megaphone somebody drove over.

The tempo is cranked back up for “Edge of Darkness” where, couched snugly in the hell and brimstone and burning voices, you will find beautifully melancholy melodies. This, for me, is a track screaming to be taken onstage to preside over a sweltering mosh pit. “Ashes” also has the same gig-ready attributes, accentuated by Hernandez’s renewed vigor on the double bass drums. Kicking you awake from any stupor induced by the echoing Sera Timms’ chants which serve as the landing strip for Ashes is the urgent, hectic “Legacy”. The clamor boils down crawling pace with “Severed Lives” where Tombs will convince you, in four minutes of stealthy whispers and sad, sparse guitar riffs, that the world is aflame.