Review by Saxy S for Tomb Mold - Planetary Clairvoyance (2019)

So here’s an album I never thought I would be covering. Tomb Mold are a local band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who are creating some straight up death metal. Now I have mentioned before that I am not the biggest fan when it comes to this genre, primarily because of its insistency of not writing hooks or melodies to keep the tracks engaging or at least interesting and instead, collectively wanking their instruments to see who can play the fastest. Now I heard parts of this bands 2018 album, Manor of Infinite Forms in passing last year and I was impressed by what I heard; the songs themselves were anchored by some pretty decent guitar melodies, even if they were a little bit more downplayed than what I would have liked.

So what did we get this year with Planetary Clairvoyance? Well, we got ourselves another solid Tomb Mold album, one that I think is better than the last one, just in concept alone, but the music itself is also quite solid.

Now I will remind you all that this is death metal album and is absolutely not for everyone! As I said off the top, death metal isn’t even my cup of tea. But one thing that this album does have is some pretty solid song structure and songwriting. The guitar lead that anchors the outro on the opening track “Beg for Life” is one of the albums highlight moments, or the very solid guitar work that lays the foundation for “Accelerative Phenomenae” and “Cerulean Salvation”. Also, the first half of the title track is very well performed as well.

“Infinite Resurrection” is a very solid tune right in the middle of the album, which feels to me like it signals a change of pace in the album. It’s a very good song that features a lot of different ideas that are crafted together very well and none of those transitions feel like they are out of place. That carries on into “Accelerative Phenomenae” and “Cerulean Salvation” as well.

However, some of these ventures do not bring positive returns. For one, the second half of the title track is alarmingly bloated as the guitars lose the rhythm entirely. Then there is a tempo change that feels unnecessary and pads the songs length even further. Or the doom metal influence that brings the closing track, “Heat Death” to a snail's pace conclusion. It really wasn’t a great way to end the album. I understand its purpose thematically, but that still doesn’t mean I have to like it. Also, this may be a little nitpicky, but I wish that Tomb Mold would have gone ahead and included a few more clean sections of reprieve like the bridge of “Beg for Life”.

Another big problem that I have with death metal in general has to do with the lyrics and the delivery of those lyrics. Now this really shouldn’t bother me since I listen to post-metal and black metal, but the delivery of the lyrics on Planetary Clairvoyance is actually pretty strong. Max Klebanoff is pulling double duty as both the drummer and vocalist and while I do wish that his vocals could have been a little bit more pronounced, most of the vocals are clear and are easily audible. There were a couple of moments such as the mesh pile that was “Planetary Clairvoyance” during the outro, but that obscurity is few and far between on this album

To summarize, Tomb Mold are appealing to a specific brand of death metal audience that I am certainly not apart of. I’ve always gone back towards the melodic side of death metal with bands such as At the Gates or Insomnium. But for what it is, Planetary Clairvoyance is actually pretty good. It probably isn’t something I’ll come back to all that much, but I can appreciate quality when I hear it, especially compared to other death metal bands in the same vein. So yeah, get in the spaceship before it get consumed by a black hole or whatever.