WOMBBATH (Swe): “Internal Caustic Torments” Cd 1993 Thrash/Infest

1 - Prevent Anemia 2 - Intestinal Bleeding 3 - A Silent as the Grave 4 - Corporal Punishment 5 - Performed in Depth 6 - Conceal Interior Torments 7 - Beyond the Gloomy 8 - Abandon 9 - Several Shapes

Aha, gotcha! You thought I was forgetting about the Vintage Friday feature? Hell no, look what I dug up from the past for today: Wombbath‘s debut album “Internal Caustic Torments” on Infest records! You might recall the name of Wombbath from a rather common Ep Cd which pops out often in record fairs and second hand shops, called “Lavatory”. Well it’s the same band but that mini is complete shit, forget about it, this is the real Wombbath stuff you need to hear! Since I doubt Infest still retains copyrights on these songs I will also enclose an mp3 with the review. Let’s see what happens. If someone wants me to take it off I can do that in a second, just tell me okay?

So how is this Wombbath like, does it have the Sunlight sound or..? Well no, actually. This record is a perfectly balanced mix of Brutal Swedish Death Metal a la Grave and English Death Metal a la early Napalm Death, Impaler or Benediction. The dynamics of the riffs are heavily fragmented, resulting in a dense, brutal display of chuggish riffs that pummel with brute force, adorned with deeply guttural grunts which are delicuously old school, yet more Anglo-Saxon than Scandinavian. The Swedish ancestry shows however through the instrumentation mostly in the way the more flowing structures are arranged, purely in the “Into the Grave” or evolved Massacre fashion, with some extra grinding attempts. For once, I prefere the most traditional Swedish riffs than the chunky breakdowns, for that’s also where you can almost discern some common roots with bands like Crematory or the Finnish Purtenance. This is no average Stockholm Death Metal, this stuff is blunt, deep and bludgeoning, full of primitive brutality and somewhat oversimplified guitar riffs. There is not much to say on the booklet except for a spectacular cover artwork by SV Bell, the Canadian artist who had also drawn covers of Kataklysm, Oppressor, Gutted, Impaled Nazarene, Obliveon and so on. It is just a folded sheet with a thanklist and a band picture, no lyrics included. What can I say, this is a classick, try to find it and good luck! Their 7″ is probably a bit easier to get, same great shit!