I briefly presented you this young parisian band last December along with other French newcomers (here) announcing a first full-length in the works, which effectively didn't took too long, as "Where the Dead Belong" is now streaming on Bandcamp !
The album is composed by 7 songs, lasting from 3 to 10 minutes, for a total length of about 40 minutes. One thing quickly clear with TOMBSTONE is their taste for slow to mid-paced Traditional Doom (with a -slight but present- groovy stonerish edge à la Goatsnake, "Born of a Jackal" most particularly).
Fuzzy and warm, a great part of the riffs are slowed down, ominous and powerful, there's some Black Sabbath, St Vitus and Trouble in here.
Vocals are generally well paced with the music through a clear and melodic approach, more heavy-rock than purely doom in fact, they could show a bit of variation in the darkest moments and be a bit more ominous in general but they're good in the more up-tempo beats (of "Shines" for example).
Last song "Werewolf", the longest and smartest of the album, let place to more adventurous structures, with lots of reverb in the furious soloing. There's long instrumental moments who include the best moods of the album - I would even say the most original.
More plodding, twisted and soulful, this one certainly shows Tombstone under its real own visage, even if the influence of Dave Chandler is still present in that fuzz drenched noise; the guitar turns out nicely acidified, eerie and wizardly droning, while the bass remains amazingly crushing. shit that's a fuckin' good song to end the album !
This kind of gives the confirmation that Tombstone would need in my opinion to be a bit more unrestrained, get loose from their influences and sometimes too typical structures; for the most part of the album everything is well balanced but somewhat too predictable, this "Werewolf" shows that some development is clearly possible.
The potencial is here and how could we decently complain when we have such a solid debut in our little budding french doom scene ?! Tombstone is ready to cross the path with other french acts across the country and abroad, playing live will certainly help them to find and reveal their real identity (with eventually smoking more different kinds of good weed and whisky from the countrysides too, hahaha !). Meanwhile this album deserves attention and is a good starter for the year to come in the Trad' Doom scene.
Like them on FB and help to add quickly a 0 to the ridiculous amount of fans they've attracted so far... hey guys you've got a great product in hands, I hope you'll work good too on promoting it ;)
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