This is the second album from US death metal band Glacial Tomb.
Glacial Tomb boast not one, but two members of the mighty Khemmis, so I’m somewhat shocked that I’m so late to their sludgy blackened death metal party. Yep, that’s right – Lightless Expanse gifts us with a 36-minute platter of horrific death metal, ripe with sludge and black metal flavourings. It’s only right that we eat deep of this malignant bounty that’s set before us.
Glacial Tomb exist in an underworld of their own making. It’s built from the bones of sludge, black, and death metal, and is populated by fleshy scraps of fierce technicality, loathsome melody, progressive terror, and dissonant darkness. It’s an environment both intimate and cosmic, imbued as it is with a spectral majesty that’s all too personal.
Although Lightless Expanse does contain sludge and black metal elements, it’s first and foremost a death metal album, one that rages against the light with bloodthirsty intensity. Having said that though, Glacial Tomb’s style is certainly a hybrid one of a few different influences. There’s a base of Swedish melodic death metal, with a touch of the chainsaw variety thrown in. This is built upon with similarly themed blackened elements that complement it well. Then, to make things more interesting, the band add some unusual dissonant flourishes, burnishing the music with otherworldly melodic accents and strangely shifting riffs. They also add a handful of vicious sludge ingredients, which work at key points or in certain places to apply a layer of filth to proceedings. This is all then subsumed into the music’s whole, so that it feels both natural and not.
Imagine a mix of The Black Dahlia Murder and Gatecreeper, with select parts of bands like Primitive Man and Gorguts, and you’ll have a rough starting point for Lightless Expanse.
With well-written songs, oodles of crushing riffs, and an array of barbed hooks, Lightless Expanse is an enjoyably brutal record.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 