The fifth release from young Canadian label, Blast Head Records is easily their best. It’s the fourth album from veteran, but new to me German death metal act Tombthroat, and it’s a scorcher of a death metal album.

The 11 tracks contained on Eden Apocalypse are completely relentless, delivering pretty much blast after blast of slightly technical but often overbearingly brutal death metal. For maybe a little more comparison I get slight hints of early Deranged mixed with some classic Crytoptsy and some of the the guitar work (possibly due to hearing the recent re-issue of Skeletal Vortex) gives me a bit of a Suture vibe. Either way, its fucking nasty, brutal (not brootal)  stuff. The production is blisteringly heavy and the vocals of Ralf Keitel are a friggin blast furnace.

The only possible down side to the album is that it rarely lets up for a breather. Even when the band do throw in a moment of control, groove or a slight slowdown (i.e “Condemned at Procreation”, “Of the Goat and the Lamb”, “Bleed for Me”- no, not a Dismember cover), its still utterly intense and is little respite from the savagery. And if I’m being honest, in retrospect the album does seem to have very few defining, memorable moments other than a few solos and the killer opening riff of standout track “Psychological Disharmonism”. Otherwise the album is pretty much a continuous beat down for its duration, a mission it accomplishes very, very well with the likes of “Breed of Depravity”, “A-Dominion”, “On the Gallows” and skin peeling closer “Lord of the Cremation Ground”.

Eden Apocalypse is one of those completely intense, violent affairs, where the album stops (with a much needed few seconds of atmospherics), and you exhale deeply and mutter “Phew”. I  have not experienced this kind of full, on merciless but well crafted death metal intensity since Morgue‘s The Process to Define the Shape of Self Loathing. There’ s a sample in “Bleed for Me” that sums up the album perfectly : “You wanna see bad ass motherfucker? Ill show you bad ass!”.

 

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments