Last year we brought you a taste of what Los Angeles-based Brazilian death metal duo Negative Vortex had in store for us via the exclusive unveiling of their debut single and music video for “Tomb Absolute,” the title track from their immense debut eponymous full-length album. That song and video revealed to us all with unmistakeable vehemence what gargantuan and timeless death metal songs this band can birth, and today, nearly a year later, we’re excited to share with you the staggering nine more similar monolithic slabs of doomed death metal majesty that comprise their debut full-length album Tomb Absolute, coming out tomorrow January 20th on 2LP, CD, cassette and digitally via Sentient Ruin, via an exclusive album premiere. Behold!
On the fifty-plus-minute monolith of total death, Negative Vortex unveils a world of endless pain and misery, constructing nine, enormous slabs of 90’s-reminiscent death and doom ascending from a pain-devoured abyss. You won’t hear any copycat revivalism or gimmicks in these tracks. These are songs that appear as if sourced from the primal material of the golden age of extreme metal’s origins. Times when Celtic Frost was laying the first stones in a dark and evil frenzy of Sabbathian riffs and ominous tempo increases, which were then standardized and carved into stone by bands like Nihilist, Obituary, and Cathedral. Chainsawing, gut-wrenching riffs riding an onslaught of pachydermic mid-tempos, regularly punctuated by rapid bursts of fiery rage reminiscent of early Scandinavian black metal blasting, and then Iintervalled again by slow, time-stretching descents into the pits of doom, as we’ve seen pioneered by bands like Candlemass and Winter. The whole album sounds, looks, and feels like an encyclopedic celebration of death metal’s most pioneering age, adorned with all its most timeless declinations as far as diversity in tempos, moods, styles, and sound.
Does it end there? NO. The meticulous, catastrophically huge production and adventurous songwriting displayed on the album often leaves ample room and space for personal touches of modernity and an almost multidimensional listening experience. Ominous spoken word passages and tense contemplative moments enhanced by layers of synths and of atmospheric dark ambiance contribute to augmenting the album’s monstrously dark aura, while the long and winding tracks (most of which easily exceed the six minute mark), seem crafted with insane amounts of perfectionism and ambition in the songwriting, creating a trance-like effect that opens massive enveloping landscapes before the listener in almost world-evoking fashion.
Does it still not end there? Far from. Enjoy some authentically genuine and masterful DEATH METAL moments tossed throughout the album, with gloriously gruesome and tortured vocals, and frequent onslaughts of razor-wire sharp leads cutting through the album’s thick atmospheres like lasers piercing a dark fog. And don’t miss taking note of the list of guests providing additional vocals and leads throughout the album: Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost and Bloodbath, Kam Lee of Massacre, Moyses Koslene of Krisiun, Leon del Muerte of Impaled and Terrorizer L.A. (and ex-Exhumed, ex-Nails, ex-Nausea, ex-Phobia), Vik from Whipstriker, and Caleb Bingham from Athanasia.
I can not stress enough the insane scope, grandeur, and ambition that went into crafting this absolute BEAST of a death metal album. From start to finish, “Tomb Absolute” will likely stand tall as one of the best death metal releases of the year, and overall as possibly the best death metal album of the year in celebrating, reinvigorating, and repurposing the genre’s finest 90’s hour; a time that was and will likely never again be.
Tomb Absolute releases officially tomorrow January 20th on 2LP, CD, cassette, and digitally via Sentient Ruin, grab it at their webshop or Bandcamp.
