Formed in 2014, Kuala Lumpur's TOMB hail from the small-yet-lethal Malaysian black/death underground that features such stalwarts as Mantak and Thorns of Hate. And just like those two contemporaries, TOMB exhibit a frightening feralness that can only come from South East Asia. And while many/most bands wimp out or slick up as they go along, the reverse is actually true for TOMB, as proven by their latest The Dark Subconscious mini-album. While their earlier EPs are hardly "refined," the throbbing mysticism compared favorably to earliest Samael, Root, and BLACK FUNERAL. Here on The Dark Subconscious do TOMB go even more primitive - "bestial," yes, but a form of bestiality birthed by the likes of Abhorer. Indeed, it's no accident that TOMB's logo change is not unlike that of those cult Singaporeans: a swirling, sulfurous mass of gutter frequencies soon assault the listener on The Dark Subconscious, occasionally colored by no-less-primitive synths left over from their earlier days. In that regard, one could liken the 16-minute miasma to Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon, the '90s work of Greece's DISHARMONY, or especially Mystifier's paradigmatic duo of Wicca and Goetia...but there's still that sense of strange, of scene-unbound lawlessness, across TOMB's latest short-length. Short but VERY sweet, long may they obey that lawlessness!
