Phrenelith - Official Website


Ashen Womb

Denmark Country of Origin: Denmark

1. Noemata
2. Astral Larvae
3. A Husk Wrung Dry
4. Lithopaedion
5. Nebulae
6. Stagnated Blood
7. Sphageion
8. Chrysopoeia
9. Ashen Womb


Review by Michael on February 6, 2025.

The world is burning, literally and with Ashen Womb Danish deathers Phrenelith present us a desperate vision of what is yet to come in the future if mankind continues the way they do right now. Kicking off with a brutal intro called "Noema" which is, according to the German-Austrian philosopher Edmund Husserl the content of the thought itself. So let your mind flow free and see some burning ground, burning people, burning houses, whatever. The future is bright.

Sounds horrifying? Yep, and so does the music. Right from the beginning is no doubt that the Danes want to destroy and cause as much damage as possible musically. Rapid drums, dramatic riffs and vitriolic vocals shred off your skin while listening to their third full-length. Here everything hurts, every guitar tune is full of malevolence and pain, every single spewed out word is full of disgust and hatred.

What is slightly different to its predecessors is that the guys sometimes throttle down the tempo a little bit to cause even more damage. Less tempo means here that their destructive efficiency multiplies. A song like "Lithopaedion" (which is a term for a deceased, petrified fetus in the womb) is mid-tempo-like but goddamn heavy as fuck though. Every riff matches, every single drum beat hits straight into the face. And the title - man what a sinister one. I don't need any "Satan take my soul blabla", this is much more evil. Sometimes they even go more to doom, like Paradise Lost did on their first album (the title track) which is a nice variety to the rest of the songs. But "Ashen Tomb" doesn't only lives from the doomy part, no, the song evolves like a macabre ancient Greek theater play. The tension gets higher and higher just to explode within the middle of it and to decline after that. Just like when everything is burnt down and only ash is raining down on the ground. Light, soft and nothing but death. These 10 minutes are really entertaining.

But most of all, the death metal Phrenelith are performing has a tempo like a raging wildfire that spreads uncontrolled through the countryside, burning everything in sight, similar to bands like Hyperdontia or Vastum. A good example for this relentlessness is "Stagnated Blood". In that song they are chopping and hacking everything away, this is as brutal as fuck. And sometimes they even go more into the 90s Napalm Death grindcore-era, just like in "Chrysopoeia", just check that staccato-like riffing in that song.

What I would like to emphasize is the fantastic guitar work combined with the drumming. Together this creates such a dense, monolithic atmosphere that it is hard to not be sucked into this album. Sometimes the Danes have created some really hypnotizing melodies (although this term in this case may be a little bit flattered). And also the production turned out to be flawless in my ears. Well-balanced and saturated this is an awesome nightmare to the ear of the listener.

"Ashen Womb" is the first (and probably a hard-to-beat) highlight in early 25 when it comes to cavernous old-school death metal and I hope that the guys will go on tour to promote that stuff live. What a great soundtrack for the downfall of the world.

Rating: 9 out of 10

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