T.O.M.B. — Fury Nocturnus
During those last 18 years, T.O.M.B. (Total Occultic Mechanical Blasphemy), have donated a great deal of their time and thoughts to delving into the ever-fruitful spheres of death, paranormal activity and occult practices. Taking in elements of a variety of musical styles from Ambient, Doom, and Industrial, to Noise, and traditional low fi Black Metal. Not content to creating dark and occultic soundscapes through traditional instrumentation, they are known to take an open door policy to instrumentation and have at various points used human and animal bones, cemetery crypt doors, tombstones, coffins and audio EVP equipment to create their own brand of blackened, atmospheric noise.
T.O.M.B. are the trio of No-One, B. Zimimay and Samantha Viola, and the project has featured contributions from a variety of musicians over the years, including legendary Mayhem drummer Hellhammer, and artwork for the album comes from Watain’s Erik Danielsson.
Moody, and dripping in atmosphere Fury Nocturnus uses field recordings and samples to great effect. Opening track Into Wotan Flames builds the ambience in preparation for the beginning of the ritual. Second track Awake, begins with a hammering sound that evokes all kinds of occult suggestions before heading into slow, doomy black metal with chanted vocals. Third track Darkness picks up the pace a little, adding in more traditional sounding black metal vocals before giving way to Death Tunnel Scars, a full on slice of industrial noise, featuring walls of white noise and screeching feedback.
Glorious Triumphant leads us into industrial black metal territory, the album is certainly diverse and never seems too keen to get stuck in a rut. Belial is noise tinged, black metal, darker and more brooding than the previous track. Ignite the Torch Again is up next and definitely represents a more traditional old school black metal vibe.
Hoards Rise Now is one of the more interesting tracks, coming across like an industrial, black metal take on Venom’s classic Manitou before giving to way to the track Oblivion Dawn, which begins with horror soundtrack style keyboards before quickly descending into doom metal riffery and those repetitive hammering sounds from earlier tracks. By the time we reach the title track the almost mandatory hammering sounds are back as we descend further and further into the circles of hell.
Fury Nocturnus is largely a dark, atmospheric slice of blackened, industrial noise, dripping in horror movie soundscapes and occult ritual. The production is extremely raw as one would expect and the chanted vocals work nicely in building the ritualistic vibe, sadly they are underused, only appearing briefly. Overall the album is enjoyable enough, but never quite becomes essential listening. Perhaps it will grow over time, but as it stands it is an interesting listen that never quite lives up to its more illustrious big brothers.