Darkness Grinds Within

Recently, i have only received bands from Russia and every album is different from the other. The variety and the number of releases in the scene there is impressive. Here i will present to you the second full length release of Hellbomb called Darkness Grinds Within and was firstly released as an independent, digital album in January of 2019 and later, in August of the same year, it was released in cd format by the Russian label More Hate Productions. Hellbomb is a four – member band formed in 2014 and they have released one demo, one EP and two full length albums. Darkness Grinds Within contains seven new compositions and one cover that i will comment on it later, and it lasts for thirty five minutes. What you get from the start is that the band is really talented but lets get into their music for more specific details.

Their special style is a combination of various styles, seemingly incompatible with each other but i believe that they have managed to produce a successful result. The first part of their music is the brutal, war Death / Black Metal fused with a lot of Scandinavian Black Metal riffing. The other part of this combination is that groovy, hardcore – like heavy riffing that reminded me a lot of Napalm Death’s Fear, Emptiness, Despair album. All these, presented under a heavy, suffocating and very dark atmosphere making the result extremely intense and brutal, not in the ordinary way. There are also some slow, melodic doom passages which give to the composition the opportunity to build up the intensity needed to move on to the chorus. The riffing is versatile, being comfortable in presenting both the fast, tremolo Black Metal, the brutal, destroying Death / Black riffs and the groovy, hardcore -ish ones. The tracks last as long as they should in order to present the band’s ideas completely and their structure is straightforward, depending heavily on the interesting verses and the catchy choruses. There are also the bridges and passages needed to build up the intensity so that the track be interesting for its entire duration and the listener not lose his focus.

The production and the mixing of the album is very professional, offering a bassy, warm and clean sound, suitable for the style of the compositions. The mixture is balanced giving the space needed by each instrument in the composition to evolve. The musicians’ performance is passionate, emotional but also stable and accurate. The guitars are the ruling instrument, the drums give the brutality but also the stability needed, while the bass support the compositions and making the atmosphere darker and heavier. The vocals are very expressive and emotional, spiting hate with their harsh Black Metal tone, while in various parts there are also some deeper Death Metal vocals, other times as main ones and other times as supporting vocals for the harsh, main ones. The lyrics are contained in the six – page booklet, they are written in English and they speak about the destruction of light, the decadence of the christian church, their hatred towards christianity and humanity in general, they are nicely written, straightforward lyrics that reminded me a more straightforward and simple way of writing lyrics of the ‘90ies.

By the above you got that the band has created a very interesting album that i liked a lot, so there is nothing else to say on that. What i would like to mention is the work that they have done for their cover to The Antichrist of Slayer. I put on Slayer’s cd to listen again to the track because this one didn’t remind me anything. They have done a really great job with the song, getting it closer to their style and presenting it as one of their own with the appropriate respect to the original. The tracks that i liked most are Deliver Us from Ourselves, Lynch Law, Darkness Grinds Within and Necrocosm. This album is not destined to some specific audience. If you like dark, suffocating, brutal and intense Metal, this one is for you.