The last time I heard Alabama’s Writhing Shadows, its was when I reviewed a group of cassettes from then fledgling label, Gurgling Gore, that included featured Wharflurch and Seep. Well, both the label and band has been productive since then with numerous cassette releases, with Writhing Shadows having released a split, an EP, a single, and a compilation since.
Well, here is the band’s full length debut and also happens to be Gurgling Gore’s first CD release (hopefully not the last), and if you’ve heard any of Gurgling Gore’s bands or any prior Writhing Shadows material, you sort of know what you are in for and Writhing Shadows deliver it in spades. Yucky, murky, tumbling, oozing spades.
Though being a death/doom band, the needle leans a little more towards the death side than some of their label mates, though they do deliver plenty of sickly, slower rumbles throughout the self titled debut. The palpable stench of Autopsy, Slugathor, Obituary, Incantation, Bolt Thrower and others seep through the down-tuned, no frills, compact 27 minute album that does not reinvent the wheel at all, but certainly looks like the wheel has been through a field of rotting corpses.
Staring with “Warlust Contortions” and ending with “Empire of Rot”, the album rumbles and lumbers with a thick, fuzzed out guitar tone and rough, throaty growls that come across like a deeper Martin Van Drunen (Asphyx) . A couple of tracks delivers brief moments of more doom-y psychedelic menace like “Born of Dying Stars”, “Hunted By The Light” and “Devourment of God’s People”. But its generally a mid paced, mudslide pacing that’s got a perfect production for the style.
As the sticker on the front of the CD states” WARNING : POSER DEATH IMMINENT”.
Now Gurgling Gore, now how about that Seep debut album (also on CD please) ?
