MOONDARK - The Abysmal Womb CD

The Abysmal Womb spawns out of nothing literally. For nine years there was silence around the death-doom guys hailing from Sweden.

Looking at the cavernous, dark and hopeless cover you can anticipate what will follow the upcoming 46 minutes and kicking off with the first tunes you know that the cover keeps what it promises.

Very catchy and rough death-doom with many references to bands from the early 90s can be found here. The guttural vocals  are underlining the gloomy atmosphere and when he turns out to scream here and there you can almost grab the desperate atmosphere that the songs evoke.

Stylistically the band found a niche between older Bolt Thrower ("War Master" / "Realm Of Chaos"-era) when it comes to the faster guitar riffing and good old Winter and also Cathedrals debut album "Forest Of Equilibrium".

The production was done very well, everything sounds powerful and full of energy. Sound-wise there is no real complaint about what was done by Peter Bjärgö (Tyrant, Crypt Of Kerberos) at Erebus Odura Studio.

And although death-doom sometimes is very challenging and if exercised too sluggish, The Abysmal Womb never tends to boredom. Of course Moondark doesn't offer anything new but they found a great way to change an already existing recipe to make death-doom very interesting and entertaining. Listening to the album is definitely an intense trip into darkness and hopelessness which at least I really enjoy to go to. This is probably one of the best death-doom records in the last couple of years.