MOONDARK – The Abysmal Womb

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7.0

• Bands:
  MOONDARK
• Duration: 00:46:21
• Available from: 12/20/2024
• Label:

• Pulverised Records

Streaming not yet available

After more than three decades from their first demo “Demo #1 / The Shadowpath” – a small underground cult now reissued several times – Moondark finally present their first full-length album, “The Abysmal Womb”, finally completing that process started with the 2011 reunion (of which we still remember with great pleasure the concert at the Kill-Town Death Fest in Copenhagen).
Today the formation of the Swedish group mainly revolves around members of Interment and October Tide and tries its hand at a sound which, starting from the raw, rhythmic death metal of its beginnings, has become a little richer in nuances, in some cases approaching true and own death-doom arias.
Since the opener “Where Once Was Life”, a certain evolution in the songwriting is perceived: obviously Moondark do not give up their old school soul, but here they try, at least at times, to go further, integrating more melody and careful alternation between moments of pure heaviness and more painful and reflective atmospheres. The structure of the album, not surprisingly, soon reveals itself to be a continuous dialogue between past and present: a particularly square track like “Infernal Genocide” recalls Bolt Thrower's approach in “Realm of Chaos”, complete with an explicit homage to “World Eater”, while episodes like “Suffer the Dark”, “Beyond Darkness” and the title track explore more multifaceted territories, approaching a death-doom that plays without hiding it with certain chiaroscuro and a more insistent search for pathos.
In short, the key element of the album is this new dynamic between the two guitars, which intertwine powerful riffs with smokier solutions, for an interaction that gives a certain depth to the compositions and breaks the monotony of an approach exclusively based on the bundling of increasingly full-bodied riffs. The influences of Winter or the first Purtenance remain, but they stand out within a more varied sound experience, which seems to be nourished by a more modern and multifaceted sensitivity.
Of course, the tracklist does not offer any particular surges of inspiration beyond the songs already mentioned: if on the one hand the album flows coherently, on the other there are no truly memorable episodes that stand out in the overall panorama. Yet, there is something quite satisfying about the journey that “The Abysmal Womb” offers: it is not a perfect album, but an honest and vivid account of a band who, despite the challenging timescales to say the least, chose not to abandon the path taken thirty years ago. It is a bumpy journey, sometimes shrouded in darkness, other times illuminated by flashes of creativity, but which culminates in a work that seems to say: “we made it, on our own terms”.
For those who love the most compact and grim death metal or for those who have always followed the Swedish underground and the stories of musicians like Johan Jansson and Mattias “Cryptan” Norrman, a work to include in the list of future listens.