(written by Islander)
One good turn deserves another.
Near the end of last month we hosted the video premiere of a song suitably named “Catharsis Through Torture” from a new album by the Finnish death metal band Ashen Tomb that’s headed our way via Everlasting Spew Records. And now, near the end of this month, we’re bringing you another Ashen Tomb song premiere, this one named “Cave of Staring Eyes“.
Maybe we should say “one utterly ruinous turn deserves another”.
Photo by Kristian Tilander
We attempted to sum up that first song from Ecstatic Death Reign as “a revel in violence”, “an expression of monstrous murderous ecstasy”, though it also gruesomely crawled and seemed to ooze putrescence as maggots hungrily fed in the riffing.
The newest album track, “Cave of Staring Eyes“, is also monstrous and macabre, and as variable as an hallucinatory nightmare, because Ashen Tomb don’t do anything by half-measures.
In this song they batter and churn, rumble and gauge, replete with horrific gutturals choked with gore and hair-raising screams. They also dial up the riffing into freakish spasms of vicious delirium, and they cause the music to stalk and whine.
But pay attention to the song’s title: The music also suddenly changes, and in the slow and eerily ringing notes you can see the staring eyes in the black cavern, and they continue creepily staring even after the band start giving your spine a sequence of swift jolts.
Yet the music does become crazed again, electrifying in its exultant eviscerations and head-long gallops, and with the guitars spiraling high in displays of broiling and gleeful derangement.
It’s yet another superior demonstration of Ashen Tomb‘s songwriting and performance adventurousness (and their attention to unsettling melody) while still being fiendishly devoted to manifesting all things hideous and horrific.
ASHEN TOMB is:
Ilkka Laaksonen – Vocals
Valtteri Viro – Drums
Joonatan Mäkinen – Guitar
Roni Oksanen – Guitar
Karhu Kuru – Bass
Ecstatic Death Reign was mixed at Studio Kolotila by Olli Nokkala, and mastered at Priory Recording Studios by Greg Chandler. The terrifically hideous cover art was created by Slimeweaver.
Everlasting Spew will release the album on CD, tape, and digital formats on October 18th, and will provide a vinyl edition in the winter of 2024. They recommend the album for fans of: Autopsy, Morta Skuld, Incantation, and Abhorrence.
In addition to links, we’ll also leave you a stream of that song we previously premiered, “Catharsis Through Torture“, as well as the album’s title song “Ecstatic Death Reign“.
PRE-ORDER:
[MAILORDER] https://bit.ly/4dwk1HW
[BANDCAMP] https://bit.ly/3ABbN2B
ASHEN TOMB:
https://www.facebook.com/ashentomb