Death metal with themes of JRR Tolkien’s ‘most harrowing tales’ as well as the FromSoftware games (Elden Ring, Dark Souls, etc), Fuck yeah, I’m in.
Fog Wall is a duo from Nevada comprised of Zak Brady on bass/vocals and Alex Malmquist on vocals (ex-Warbringer), with some session folks helping out on guitars and drums.
The style of death metal is a murky, musty style of OSDM (the Floridian sort, particularly like Obituary, Autopsy, and Morbid Angel) meets new ‘caveman death metal’ like Tribal Gaze, Frozen Soul, etc, though not quite a Bolt Thrower worship band.
Starting with “Manor of Ensnarement”, the band growls ( and screeches) and blasts and lopes through 44 minutes or so of decent death metal. Not great, just solid, enjoyable death metal.
It lacks some of the pure heft and stomp of some of its peers, though it does have a stout low end and isn’t overly savage or brootal, but certainly has enough of both to please the death metal fan curious about the Lord of the Rings and video game subject matter.
Tracks like “The Accursed”, heaving “Marzabul (Desolation)” (IYKYK), blasting “Belching Black Vapors”, rollicking “Strangling Gloom”, the most varied track, “Fleshpot Ritual” and the aptly named spider-y “Frantic Orb Weaver” are enjoyable and worth a relisten for sure.
The only outlier is the Type -O-Negative medley/cover “The Profit of Doom”, but seeing as I’m not a huge Type-O fanboy (I’m more of a Carnivore guy), I’ll let you fans out there decide for yourself if death metal versions of Type-O songs work or not.
For some reason, that cover/medley isn’t the last song (as covers should be, IMHO). The Elden Ring-based ” Traverse” ends the album with more of a doomy crawl that suits the band’s sound and motifs pretty well, and I hope they explore further on the next album.
