Despairing yet unblenched as they are siphoned through one torturous anomaly after another Santiago, Chile-based atmospheric “necrological” death metal quartet UTTERTOMB carry the wizened deterioration of time and experience in hand as they present their debut full-length album a decade and a half beyond their collective will into cult entity. Sporting a sound tested over the course of numerous minor cycles ‘Nebulas of Self-Desecration‘ acts as the first major orbiting tour of their morbid haunt, a voluminous yet fearsome act of abyssal death metal. Carrying dread through eight hypnotic pieces in exploration of its ~45 minute long stretch of cavernous, corrosive yet bestial riff-driven craft this grand introductory march does well to flatten the listener with exaggerated rhythmic shapes, wretched yet sophisticated spells depicting horrified attempts to cleave the soul from the flesh and transcend into death.

Uttertomb formed under their original alignment circa 2009 reportedly releasing a promo CD-R under the name Ultratomb in 2011 before they’d released their first EP (‘Necrocentrism‘, 2012) under their finalized name. That first recording wasn’t perfect but at the time and in the realm of atmospheric, cavernous and doomed death metal it was admirably aggressive and never so buried in reverb that its brutality was interrupted. The same could be said for the much improved 7″ (‘Sempiternal‘, 2016) which’d served as my introduction to the band when it was reissued on cassette tape in early 2018 wherein I’d appreciated the grinding doom of it all in a brief review. Between a re-recording of the ‘Necrocentrism‘ EP (‘Necrocentrism: The Necrocentrist‘, 2017) the following year and a 2019 split w/Evil Spectrum I would’ve described the sound they’d developed as somewhere in the realm of recent Krypts and compatriots Verbum though today I would suggest that their sound has evolved to include a dramatic rhythmic wander which involves tangents not unlike Grave Miasma, but including the atmospheric bestial death of Wrathprayer and the Immolation-esque drive of Godless‘ (Chl) debut. If you are familiar with each reference, their work has clear impetus in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s spectrum of death metal, similar but separate from the ‘caverncore’ traditions of a certain era.

What starts as a smoke-pouring gateway to the netherworld as we drift from a brief into unto opener “Exhumation of the Womb’s Splendour” becomes a boiling, dramatic spilling of woefully set atmospheric vortex to kick off the record. This voluminous expanse in whorl perfectly represents the volatile intensity and obsidian atmospheric cough the band’d touched upon on more recent minor releases but here the momentum builds with some great immediacy and the movement is not simply gushy war metal. Through the void of death into truly surrealistic brutality this is merely the first step of eight which takes us into the consuming portal beyond, it is the second proper piece on the album, “Graceless Thaumaturgy”, which steps beyond doomed chaos in descent and finds a unique textural accost per the two guitarist’s blackened tonal swings finding their peaking point of interplay in terms of rhythm and lead. For my own taste this is the major fuel for repeat listens, not only the psyched-out and distraught stretch in the last third of the opener but the rapturous almost ‘…and So the Night Became‘-level journey of the second piece.

There is a palpably ominous, bestially summoned cloud which hangs over those opening moments and it does well to inform the deeply hypnotic tone of this remarkably atmospheric and thoughtfully narrated occult death/doom metal record. Where we begin to hone in on the grotesquely stated doom of the record arguably comes with “Opisthotonic Funerals” which carries a sort of ‘Blood Rituals‘ level drag to its main riff which soon becomes a central harmonic pivot for the two rhythm guitars to meander in and out of view before the bigger doom metal riff becomes the main movement of the second half, pinch harmonic footing at all. Beyond this revelation “Aurora Cruoris” acts as the peaking weight of the atmosphere which the rhythm guitars drape over the whole recording as well as the piece to fully showcase the warped verve of their rhythms at its most ear-blurring and nauseated movement. The walk through Side A and that first step into the second half would end up being the most captivating part of the full listen for my own taste but that shouldn’t suggest the full listen is inconsistent, rather that the album takes an even more brutal turn next and I’d appreciated the nuanced and doom-stricken dramatism of the opening half slightly more.

“Seraphobia” acts as the putrid descent, defenestration of the angelic body from a high place as we reach ~2:41 minutes into the song before taking a step back for a moment and returning with one of the coldest, most sinister grooves on the full listen. This paired with the slow-built and droning nearly nine minute closer/title track (“Nebulas of Self-Desecration”) continues to entertain, introduces more vigorous pacing and helps to avoid a full-bore death/doom metal tag from my point of view. Not every moment on the final song is a cunning strike but Uttertomb‘s composer(s) do change it up often enough during this extended closer that it shapes into an imposing, dismal collapse to end the thought.

The full listen of ‘Nebulas of Self-Desecration‘ has just enough of a classic death/doom edge alongside its own early 2010’s sense of exploratory hypnoses available to its rhythms that Uttertomb‘s debut was a quick and easy induction for my own taste and a naturally immersive experience by design. Some pieces are arguably superior to others when it comes to a cold riff count but the flow of the full listen and use of noxious atmosphere ultimately reads as consistency and mastery of these illustrative forms. It helps quite a bit that the production values are organic in motion at all times and the space depicted is voluminous but not obfuscated by too-exaggerated reverb, add in evocative cover artwork from Khaos Diktator alongside a perfectly set album length and this album was well above-average from my point of view and has thus far proven immensely repeatable from the first listen. A very high recommendation.

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