T.O.M.B. stands for Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy, making it about the most accurately descriptive band name since Extreme Noise Terror. Under the leadership of the enigmatic No One, this shadowy Pennsylvanian noise cult (featuring Mayhem drummer Hellhammer) have been churning out demonic black industrial ambient madness for 18 years, purportedly recording in derelict lunatic asylums, banging crypt doors with human bones, even capturing sounds at the grave of Hellhammer’s ex-bandmate Euronymous.
The haunted, gargling vocals and eerie guitar drones root the album resoundingly in black metal, but it’s movement’s the fiendishly abstruse sub-basement, inhabited by queasy-listening guttersnipes like Abruptum and Gnaw Their Tongues. As always with this sort of unholy cacophony, if you’re in the right mood and receptive to their oppressive atmospheres, it’s an engrossing soundscape of feverish ritualistic impulses; if you’re not, it’s a silly, patience-testing din. Trying to identify the layers of sound as they tumble and jab out of the speakers may invoke paranoia, not to mention headaches, and deep concentration through headphones might guarantee the listener a visit to the madhouses T.O.M.B. use for studios.
