Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance

Intergalactic Ouroboros.

(Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on July 19th 2022) 

If there are two things I pride myself on, they’re being fashionably late and keeping my promises. Almost a month ago, I covered Tomb Mold’s Aperture of Body demo, and in that review I vouched that I’d also be covering their 2019 effort Planetary Clairvoyance. Seeing as I’m a man of my word, I finally got around to doing so, as you can probably tell by the fact that you’re reading this here text. So without further ado, let’s get right to it.

Now the first and most important thing to note about this project is its sound and general aesthetics. While they might not appear as such, Tomb Mold does evolve and shift between albums, and their discography as a result tends to be much more varied than what the average OSDM band might offer. Things are somewhat different this time around though. The band decided to shift to a more straightforward caverndeath sound, which might be a turn off to anyone who was fond of the mid-tempo riffy stuff from their previous two releases, or outright sick of the sound. For better or worse, your enjoyment of this work hinges entirely on your fondness or frustration with the Incantation craze that’s been going on. Regardless, I find myself enjoying this for two very simple reasons: first off, I’m a sucker for caverndeath, and secondly, the songwriting is top notch.

Every single song here has more than its fair share of memorable moments, to the point where bringing up every single one would lead to a rather boring track-by-track review. Whether it’s riffs, leads, or vocal lines, there’s no shortage of things that can grab your ear and stick with you long after your first listen. Let’s take for example the openings to “Infinite Resurrection” and “Accelerative Phenomenae”. Both kick things off with some of the absolute strongest riffs here, the former sporting an up-tempo crushing headbanger and the latter being an unhinged explosion of energy. To put this into perspective, these songs have been stuck in my head since 2019, even without me revisiting this album super often, just a couple of times every few months or so. It’s moments like these that are the mark of excellent musicians who know how to compose a song that will stick with you long after you first hear it.

As for the previously mentioned leads, they’ve been one of the things I enjoy the most about Tomb Mold’s music, much to my surprise. They’re wild and “deathy”, but they always maintain a certain tunefulness to them, resulting in solos that don’t just add more flavour to the songs they’re in, but also manage to stand on their own and make a case for themselves. Whether it’s the melting soloing on the quasi-title track, or the slow and dramatic builds on “Heat Death”, there’s plenty of expertly placed guitar lines that can catch your ear, and I can’t say I’ve found a point during which I thought “okay, this is neat but can we get back to the riffs?”. Okay, maybe there was one point with “Phosphorene Ultimate”, which was a rather redundant interlude that threw a spanner in the works, but other than that things constantly moved forward and I was always looking forward to the next transition.

My praises extend to the production, another aspect the band has handled perfectly. It’s cavernous, but the atmosphere doesn’t come at the expense of the music, resulting in a crisp, but not sterile sound that allows one to discern the instruments themselves. The fibrous guitars are obviously the main star of the show, delivering riffs with great force, being propped up by a grumbling bass that roars alongside them and doesn’t stay content with being in the background. As for vocalist and drummer Max Klebanoff, his presence on both fronts is handled with care, his drumming, while more straightforward than before, is still present and drives the songs forward, and his breathy growl is omnipresent without taking centre stage. I know I get hung up on the production a lot in my reviews, but it can add so much to the music in some cases, and this is one of those.

Truth be told, despite how much I’ve praised Planetary Clairvoyance, I’ve gotten sick of death metal. Shocking, I know. It’s not like I’ve spent the past 2,5 years doing a deep dive on the genre listening to both the good and mediocre stuff, old and modern. Despite that though, I inexplicably find myself returning to Tomb Mold. Is it the riffs, is it the fact that they’re the band that kicked off my death metal addiction to begin with? I’d be lying if I said I had a concrete answer for that. What I do know for sure though is that their music is something special, and they’ll always be among the bands I’ll revisit, even if I completely fall out of love with the subgenre.

Highlights: Infinite Resurrection, Accelerative Phenomenae, Heat Death

Rating: 95%