Review by Michael on January 7, 2025.

The Abysmal Womb spawns out of nothing literally. For nine years there was silence around the death-doom guys hailing from Sweden who had released two demos so far and all of a sudden they released their debut via Pulverised Records.

Looking at the cavernous, dark and hopeless cover you can anticipate what will follow the upcoming 46 minutes and kicking off with the first tunes you know that the cover keeps what it promises.

Very catchy and rough death-doom with many references to bands from the early 90s can be found here. The guttural vocals of Alexander Högborn (who was active for Demonical, Centinex and some other bands and still is in Kryptan) are underlining the gloomy atmosphere and when he turns out to scream here and there you can almost grab the desperate atmosphere that the songs evoke.

Stylistically the band found a niche between older Bolt Thrower ("War Master" / "Realm Of Chaos"-era) when it comes to the faster guitar riffing and good old Winter and also Cathedrals debut album "Forest Of Equilibrium". A good example for that (and a very deep bow to both of the bands) may be 'Suffer The Dark' which is one of the slower songs on the album and which gets a very threatening atmosphere with the creeping, monolithic riffing and the deep vocals.

Another really bone-breaking and ultra brutal song is the next one called 'Palliative Dusk'. Jesus, the riffs are really heavy as fuck and every brutal death metal band sounds like a pussy compared to that one. There aren't too many changes or surprises in that one but every single note matches and hits you on your nose.

'Infernal Genocide' is one of the faster songs we can find here. Typical Bolt Thrower-riffs ("World Eater" is probably their most favorite song by the Brits) are to be found everywhere but the song turned out super groovy and once again the vocals are quite remarkable. Sick, sicker, Moondark – I sometimes sound this way the next morning when I had a beer too much the other day.

I mentioned Cathedral as an influence before – just check the title track. Here are their typical trademarks lurking between the death metal façade. They are discovered pretty well but if you listen carefully you will find them. Oh and Winter is coming with 'Immersed To Crypts', the slowest one on that debut.

The production was done very well, everything sounds powerful and full of energy. Sound-wise there is no real complaint about what was done by Peter Bjärgö (Tyrant, Crypt Of Kerberos) at Erebus Odura Studio.

And although death-doom sometimes is very challenging and if exercised too sluggish, The Abysmal Womb never tends to boredom. Of course Moondark doesn't offer anything new but they found a great way to change an already existing recipe to make death-doom very interesting and entertaining. Listening to the album is definitely an intense trip into darkness and hopelessness which at least I really enjoy to go to. This is probably one of the best death-doom records in the last couple of years.

Rating: 9 out of 10