All Empires Fall is great for none of the reasons I initially got into Tombs. Gone are the eerie, droning doom ridden guitars over washed out pseudo lo-fi drums that made up Path of Totality. All Empires Fall embraces the trajectory away from post rock set by Savage Gold and that's totally fine.

This EP amplifies the blackened subtleties that were present in Tombs from the start. Deceiver is a straightforward black n roll ripper while 'V' wears the cloak of symphonic, melodic black metal with vocals akin to Celtic Frost and Type O Negative. Ultimately, this is a solid release, just not a release that feels like Tombs to me.

NTW draws more from Pervertor than it does the more tinny and industrial Death Mask, opting for a more aggressive and blackened atmosphere. This EP hits hard and fast, ending much sooner than I would have preferred, but that's the nature of an EP I suppose. While NTW doesn't offer up anything new or truly unique, it does act as a prelude for what should be a crushingly vile, more fleshed out Mantis LP in the hopefully near future.

One of the few bands that is actually heavier due to lacking a second guitarist. The dissonant, ghastly guitar leads over a rhythm section consisting of just a bass that surely must have gotten it's tone through possession from Choronzon or some creature of the nether makes for uniquely heavy parts.

This album doesn't rely on layers of power chords to achieve it's heaviness, in fact, it surpasses the standard of heaviness with minimalism and open space.

What everyone else said: bleak, depressive, hopeless, unrelenting, misanthropic... but those are just words... words that attempt to represent the void that is this album but are swallowed into the abyss along with everything else of light and humanity. Home Is Where The Hatred Is is the sound of everything optimistic dying, the sound of the veil falling and the realization that we all are (and will die) alone.

Sounds just as the album title would suggest. And I like the sound of disease so when it's of the sewer variety you better believe I'm gonna love it.

Raw, dissonant sludge/doom with interesting song structures full of explosive surprises (not diarrhea) of chaotic blasts and tempo shifts. Packaged with a warm, fuzzy analog production.

4/5

You had me at "blackened bones of gods."

Huge, thick, melancholic and beautiful.

YONL are masters of repetition; expertly expanding on a single riff
until it swells into a wall of sound that would break your speakers, and give house cats seizures if it got any bigger.