It’s been 9 years since Kentucky’s Tombstalker dropped their solid debut album, Black Crusades. Since then, there have been some lineup changes; drummer Dustin Boltges (Flesher, ex-Skeletonwitch) and guitarist Gruftspüre have joined the fray. And keen-eyed fans will also notice a slight change in the logo (which debuted on the 2022 EP Age Of Darkness).
What hasn’t changed is the band’s deft mix of multiple genres, from Bolt Thrower and Swedish death metal to some black metal, war metal, and some black/thrash, and even some Gothenburg death metal with damn solid results.
Those elements come together both between songs and smoothly within them. Case in point: the opening title track has a lot of everything thrown into one eight-minute mass of tumbling, rumbling riffs; the early Entombed, “Revel in Flesh” styled gallop standout “Inexorable Slaughter”, the pure spikes-and-leather black thrash of “Fully Armed and Filthy”, the Bolt Thrower trundle of “Unto the Anvil of War” (which also has another “Revel in Flesh” type riff), the tremolo-picking riffs in “Warp Storm Imminent”. In all, I keep being reminded of fellow Kentuckians Abominant.
If my ears are correct, there is even some slight keyboard usage in “Penitent Engine”, and then in “Iron Within, Iron Without”, the album’s other standout, gets blasty with some Dismember-y melodies before the closer “Eternal Enslavement” wraps things up with a song that does a little of everything, but i would have preferred the album go out with a bit more of a memorable bang.
The production has a slight Swedish buzz to it, but I wouldn’t call it a full-on buzzsaw guitar tone, and vocalist/guitarist Conqueror Horus has a throaty rasp and shout, keeping things in that black/thrash realm, though the odd gruff bellow reminds you this is mostly solid, enjoyable death/black metal at its core.
