Take one swig of Tomb Mold’s debut LP, Primordial Malignity (Blood Harvest) and it’d be permissible to believe it was a lost recording from great death metal stock boom of the nascent 1990s. Somehow the young duo of Max Klebanoff (drums, vocals) and Derrick Vella (guitars, bass) made their way through time to scavenge Morrisound Recording studio archives and found untapped reserves of grimness.

But it is indeed 2017 and Doc Brown has not conceived time travel, yet these Torontonians have birthed a sound that recalls years of tape-trading vintage Earache, Roadrunner and Metal Blade albums. ‘They Grow Inside’ pays tribute to Carcass’ with its saw-toothed riffs colliding with lo-fi rhythms and morphing into fluid leads. The Liverpool love is also felt on its title-track with a series of blast beats that honors Ken Owen’s work on ‘Incarnated Solvent Abuse.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDvewtJzE-k

‘Twisted Trail’ provides another swift death-kick to the mouth that emerges from the strange plain that exists between Entombed and Cannibal Corpse. But it’s not always a nitrous oxide ride to the finish, as ‘Merciless Watcher’ is an efficient knuckle dragger that keeps the buzzing fretwork and kick-drum battering to a creeping mid-tempo.

Primordial Malignity is certainly a niche product for this day and age. It’s brutal without resorting to deathcore cliché and technical without being slathered in the Unique Leader production sheen. To the unconditioned ear, most of these songs will likely sound the same and bleed into another. But to the extreme connoisseur, there is plenty of gold to be found in these swamps. So much so, that I’m willing to waive my usual discontent with Intro and Outro tracks on metal albums. See, I am fair.

Solid promise is shown from this Canadian outfit. Future quality work like this places them right in the same bracket as other young lions like Horrendous and Rivers of Nihil.

8.0/10

HANSEL LOPEZ