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MUSIC<br />
Dig the way he holds back on<br />
“Deathtripper,” for example, before<br />
leveling his surroundings on “Edge<br />
of Darkness,” laying into his drums<br />
with the skull-crushing force and<br />
sheer brutality of the Mountain<br />
physically overwhelming the Red<br />
Viper in “Game of Thrones.”<br />
While Hill still tends to favor<br />
throat-shredding screams, he<br />
occasionally traverses down new,<br />
unexpected avenues. On “Echoes,”<br />
an eight-minute end-times epic<br />
where “worlds turn to dust,” the<br />
frontman whispers, screams,<br />
howls, and, ever so briefly, adopts<br />
a straightforward singing voice as<br />
close to a conversational tone as<br />
his vocals have ever pursued.<br />
This sense of exploration<br />
carries over in everything from the<br />
musical backdrop to the graveobsessed<br />
lyrics, which find the<br />
band struggling with big questions<br />
surrounding the afterlife, death,<br />
and lasting scars impressed on<br />
individuals left behind in life’s wake.<br />
There are no easy answers, but<br />
Tombs have emerged from these<br />
depths with a powerful document<br />
as visceral and immediate as any<br />
metal album released this year. In<br />
death, it could be said, Tombs has<br />
found new life. —Andy Downing<br />
66 TONE AUDIO NO.64<br />
July 2014 67
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