HEADS-UP: Tome - Demo Tape MMXII ...

The first time I had the chance of listening to Tome was right in their natural environment, i.e. Dublin, at the über-cool Dublin Doom Days Chapter IV festival, at the end of Semptember 2012. Tome was one of the emerging bands involved in the festival and, notably, the band opening the festival. In spite of such dangerously “early” schedule, there were quite some people (me included) paying love and kudos to these three young doomsters who did a most enjoyable performance, in perfect line with the top quality standard of this great doom festival as a whole.
Tome are a new sludge-doom trio from Ireland (actually I am not sure whether specifically from Eire or Northern Ireland, I saw both indications in the web). Anyway the band is involving D McIlhatton on bass and vox, M Salters on guitars and vox and C McAuley on drums. Double vocalists, and powerful ones.  Actually that festival came not long after the release of Tome’s debut demo, Demo MMXII, which was printed as cool tape in two versions, a first in creepy greenish tinge and a second one in blue.

Here we have “In Fire and Ash” and “Void Cantation”, two fat tracks of monolithic, sinister, raw, distorted, doped, sick sludge-doom metal lead by frankly sabbathian riffs but strongly smelling of moss over tombstones and bong water. The first modern band almost automatically evoked by a first listen of Tome’s tunes is Electric Wizard, although also Saint Vitus came to my mind as well especially while enjoying the monster groovy riffs in the second track, Void Cantation. But these guys come from a land possessing their own past and present-day monsters of slow, crushing heaviness, like The Naut, War Iron and Slomatics. The double vocals are emitting ferocious, death metal-sounding, reverbered roars that get swallowed by the overwhelming wall of sound from the deeply downtuned guitars/bass and the rumbling drumming. The leading melodies are duly sinister and often possess that type of occult/ritual development recalling Electic Wizard as well as War Iron’s or Horse Latitude’s hypnotic toxic lullabies. However occasionally Tome’s guys like to speed up tempos a wee bit, maybe remembering their past militancy in black metal-punk bands. 
  
The production is raw and perfect for the magma-type sensations conveyed by this kind of music, and I liked particularly that way of making vocals utterly suffocating when devoured by the feedback. This coupling of ferocious roaring vocals and groove-laden sludge-doom sounds reminds me also of bands like Fister, Demonic Death Judge, as well as emerging acts like Corax, Black Temple Below, Fuoco Fatuo etc.. So do we have another band playing doped sludgy doom metal? Yep, slabs … While waiting for more from Tome, get hold of them playing live if you are at the right latitudes and buy their cool blue tape either at the gigs or via Into The Void Records.

Words: Marilena Moroni

Bandcamp
Facebook
Tome | Into The Void Records