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TOMB MOLD
Planetary Clairvoyance

20 Buck Spin (2019)
Rating: 7.5/10

20 Buck Spin is simply one of the best labels around at the moment, and Tomb Mold’s latest is one I’ve been chomping at the bit to get hold of as it falls onto my lap like a rubbery chunk of convulsing flesh from parts unknown.

This ungodly bunch of Toronto, Canada-based deathsters impressed me greatly with their sanguineous sophomore 2018 outing Manor Of Infinite Forms, and it’s great to have them back munching my ears like a ravenous pack of the undead led by the guttural phlegm-blurts of drummer Max Klebanoff.

This four-piece, in case you’ve been living under or hit on the head by a rock, dabble in effective, atmospheric but straight down the line sinister death metal that often chugs and vomits like a machine of hammering yet meat-clogged pistons that eventually spurt fountains of gore when the combo becomes an unrelenting mesh of gnashing speed.

But for me, Tomb Mold is a greater beast when it follows that mid-paced pathway to ghoulishness; all summed up by the foul opener ‘Beg For Life’ which hangs like dismal air due to its fetid riffs that billow and smoke and eventually belch up their own innards in tandem with a scarring bass dribble and cancerous drum sound.

Everything about Tomb Mold is putrid and engulfing; as expected Planetary Clairvoyance, in spite of its silly title, is claustrophobic as the clan rattles in unrelenting manner through a butcher’s shop of infected slabs dripping with organic and yet very much contaminated drudgery.

‘Planetary Clairvoyance (They Grow Inside Pt. 2)’ enables occasional morbid leads to worm their way through the congealed walls as the vocal eruptions range from hungry, ravenous slurps to full on incomprehensible coughs of mucus.

But even in their speed, Tomb Mold remains an accessible if dirty organ that lives on its own squalid existence. Yes the band shows progression from previous works, but it’s still consistent and meaty death metal that doesn’t set out to bamboozle. Instead, tracks such as ‘Infinite Resurrection’ are akin to being smothered alive by rotten carcasses as the song hammers without mercy, only on occasion lessening its pace to allow us to breath before once again we’re dipped in the rotten yolk of its wares, plummeting head first into a chasm of machinery.

The steady rhythms of a track such as closer ‘Heat Death’ are symbolic of the albums outlay; a vast battering ram of infectious, melodious but pulverising constructions built with utterly oppressive and organic splendour as strains of harmonious leads squirm for air amidst the blubber and maggot-ridden walls of fat.

‘Accelerative Phenomenae’ is a ghastly and morose mass of slow, suffocating chords which melt into faster segments; the infectious trudge so darn heavy and draining before the masterful strokes of ‘Cerulean Salvation’ comes winding its serpentine arse through the slimy tunnels to create a vacuum of intense, simmering guitar work and battering drums.

The whole air of this thing is decrepit as Klebanoff bellows “Crushed under the might of the cosmogenic barrage” without realising that we’d already succumbed to such destructive and weighty connotations within the rapture of the opening track.

Planetary Clairvoyance is Tomb Mold doing what they do best without really deviating wildly from previous outings, but it’s still one Hell of a punishing record that’ll choke you until the cows come home.

Neil Arnold

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