RSS Feed


SUUM
Buried Into The Grave

Endless Winter / Hellas (2018)
Rating: 8/10

A great album cover, a chiming bell, pouring rain and a fizzing doom-metal riff. This is how we’re introduced to Italian doom metal act Suum.

Buried Into The Grave is the debut artefact from this Rome-based quartet, who are Mark Wolf (vocals), Painkiller (guitars), Marcas (bass) and Rick (drums), and it’s the wails of Wolf which impress me most about this decent doom metal adventure.

Hints of Solitude Aeternus and Candlemass spring to mind, with Wolf opting for the haunting, sorrowful wails instead of anything remotely gnarly, while his merry band of miserable followers conjure up enough dark spells of disorder to keep me captivated.

Again, like the recently reviewed Madvro album (Invocation Of High Wizard), this is very much harkening back to the creakin’ vintage style of doom metal which I adore so much, with massive slabs of riffery, fizzing morose leads, weighty sticks of cavernous cavorting and clumpy bass lines that shudder the spine. Indeed, the whole scenario concocted by these Italians is akin to standing at the oaken door of an imposing haunted mansion with every creak of the door and then the floorboards being acted out by the instruments on offer.

Thunder in the skies, a sense of dread, a shadow in the car, a black cat on the stairs, and the dismal creak of a coffin lid somewhere in the depths of the building, Suum really are the new masters of whisperings séances, rainy contortions and buzzing despondency.

Opener ‘Tower Of Oblivion’ is a fine exercise in lumbering brilliance; the percussion sounding like the eerie footfalls of some over-sized and monstrous house servant as Wolf warbles with agonising aplomb. The dark riffery is so splendidly Gothic as ‘Black Mist’ rumbles with added dollops of angst, with chills caused by Painkiller’s murky traipse as Marcas’ bass comes creeping through the corridors like some reanimated corpse. This is genuinely creepy doom metal of the highest order, prompting one to form a cult and hide out in the attic of the aforementioned house!

The title track simmers initially, but soon begins to roll like thick, coating mist from a remote moor. Wolf’s vocals are given extra sinister sauce as his wails turn to snaps of despair, accompanied by an equally distressing solo that soars and floats like a belfry of bats. Epic stuff.

The rest of the tracks come thick and stodgy. The disconsolate chimes of ‘Last Sacrifice’ trickle into the stark yet commanding buzz of ‘Seeds Of Decay’, while instrumental ‘The Woods Are Waiting’ is as eerie as its title suggests. The latter is almost wistful yet ghostly by design, and acts as a mere atmospheric interlude before the menacing ‘Shadows Haunt The Night’ comes like an earthquake, producing bone-shaking contractions and claps of thunder.

Wolf stands like some preacher of evil in the mist. His Gothic streams rain down on the ritual that has now begun in the tower, as behind him his coven nods in agreement, with each chug and drum thud a gesture towards the unholy forces at work. Indeed, this is some scary shit, and is up there with Druid Lord, Sherpherds Crook and Bestialord for providing some of the best chills of the year so far, in turn transforming your holy water to muck and your brains to dust.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share