Album Review: Moondark – The Abysmal Womb (Pulverised Records)

Moondark deliver a massive dose of gloom and doom as we approach Christmas with their debut full length, The Abysmal Womb.

The Swedish Doom-Deathers look to make a dent in the general positivity of Christmas by delivering an album of towering groove in a brooding and dense atmosphere that will be released everywhere on the 20th of December 2024. It’s an album of gloom and doom with parallel’s to early Crematory, Crowbar and Cathedral’s debut album. The album is also a long time coming with the band having originally formed in 1993, eventually getting to the point of releasing a debut album 3 decades later.

I don’t know the full story behind that and have to assume they weren’t actually active the whole time. From wat I can see, they released a demo in 1993, then another demo called The Shadowpath in 2015 and that is it, until now with The Abysmal Womb.

It does look like the members of Moondark are busy and active members of bands like Interment, October Tide,and Dellamorte so Moondark may be a bit more of a side project, or something they have been wanting to do and not been able to until now.

Moondark are Alexander Högbom on vocals, Johan Jansson and Mattias Norrman on guitars, Allan Lundholm on bass and Kennet Englund on drums.

When the band introduce their music as death, doom, gloomy and brooding, you won’t really be surprised when you hear the sounds they are delivering. It is exactly that. Starting with Where Once Was Life, you get hit with a wave of deep and dirty music – riffs that reverberate and bass that hits hard with thick and murky tones. There is plenty of distortion, plenty of booming drum beats all delivered at a slower tempo. Vocals are harsh, deep and powerful with a few variations and bits of backing here and there creating a nice contrast. What really helps keep things interesting though is the slightly higher tones lead guitar melodies that come along with all of the darkness. It fits the song still, never raising us out of pessimism and into optimism, but creates a wicked but subtle contrast as the leads leap out over the murkiness.

Being that slower, doom and death style, of course it’s a headbanger. The whole album is littered with tons of groove delivered at that tempo that just forces your neck to work. Suffer The Dark really goes to town on the distorted bassy riffs with some excellent drums and a winding lead guitar melody that carries you on it’s wave until we drop back into headbanging again. It’s cleverer stuff than you might initially pick up on. Contrasts are used well but the overall tone keeps you down and embedded in their gloomy atmosphere throughout.

Palliative Dusk and Sterile Earth keep the darkness at the forefront with Sterile Earth really hitting hard with a huge bassy intro that you can’t not move and stomp to and a seriously sinister slowed down section. The vocals in this part are particularly demonic with some really neat drum patterns and clever guitarwork. Moments like these show we are dealing with professionals – debut or not. Infernal Genocide keeps the murkiness coming with a feats of heavy, crunchy riffs and stomping rhythm. Vocals roar viciously alongside the bass heavy tones. It makes you grimace, makes you bang your head. The melody drops in about half way through to freshen the track up and switch a good heavy song into a great song using that contrast of tones really cleverly to keep things sounding interesting. It’s a strong track.

Moondark continue to deliver filthy heaviness with Beyond Darkness which, unsurprisingly is another deep, dark and dirty riff monster. Drawn out vocals add a touch more menace than the already menacing tracks delivered so far, all wrapped up in a heavy but comforting blanket of thick, bassy riffing. It’s solid as a rock – not game changing, just some proper heavy doom/death metal. Beyond Darkness becomes my favourite track on the album so far though when it switches up over half way through dropping in a slowed down section with a heavy atmospheric touch, then building back up from there with faster drums and a massive dash of groove.

The title track, The Abysmal Womb, follows and brings more heaviness, but also more of everything else. More melody, more cymbals (lots of cymbals) and a touch higher a tempo. The use of a repetitive melody to create a mesmerising and hypnotising line is clever stuff. With some really neat sped up drum sections, plenty of slower thick groove and those splatterings of melody, it’s a very easy song to listen to and like, delivering everything we listen to this genre of music and metal for. Solid as a rock, riff led metal with clever enhancing touches. It’s another quality song.

That leads us through to the closing track on The Abysmal Womb which is titled Immersed To Crypts. While at first you would be forgiven for thinking you are getting more of the same. More heaviness, more crunchy doom sounds and more vicious vocals, there are moments in this song that add a little more spice. The base of crunchy riffing, bassy darkness and stomping rhythm is there but Moondark play around with tempo here to change things up a bit with some parts really slowing down and drawing out the vocal lines and guitars.

They then build up to some of the faster sections on the album overall, which is still slow, but just faster for them and the drums in particular get a workout. Some screaming lead guitar work beds itself in nicely with the chunky monster sounds before the band suddenly drop down into atmospheric backing that sounds a little bit like a hellscape, for an extended fade out that closes out the album perfectly.

Moondark certainly bring the moodiness this Christmas time with an album that hammers hard with it’s dark and grim music. Doom and death at the forefront, it’s relentless in it’s delivery of hard hitting, headbanging music. With powerful, aggressive vocals and some clever use of melody, they manage to prevent any real issues with repetition across songs, from the similar tone and tempo used across most of The Abysmal Womb, delivering an album with a touch of class, that will bring a snarl or grimace to the face of even the most positive of person.

TRACKLIST

1. Where Once Was Life

2. Suffer The Dark

3. Palliative Dusk

4. Sterile Earth

5. Infernal Genocide

6. Beyond Darkness

7. The Abysmal Womb

8. Immersed To Crypts

Moondark Links

Facebook – Instagram – YouTube – Bandcamp – Pulverised Records – Pulverised Records Bandcamp