The Canadian death metal enthusiasts' fourth full-length effort and first album in four years,
The Enduring Spirit
sees
Tomb Mold
continuing to innovate within the realm of the steadfastly orthodox heavy metal subgenre.
Max Klebanoff
's cavernous growl and steely beats provide the anchor, allowing guitarists
Payson Power
and
Derrick Vella
to veer off into uncharted territory without losing their true north. Throughout the LP's tightly cloistered seven songs, blastbeats race neck and neck with blazing riffs that house frantic melodies wrapped in discord. Those moments of unrelenting fury occasionally give way to proggy jazz-fusion reveries that suggest
listened to as much
Rush
during their formative years as they did
Death
's
Scream Bloody Gore
. Even at their most kinetic, there is a constant sense that a hard left is just around the corner, and repeated spins yield cracks in the framework that offer glimpses of future forays. The epic closing track, "The Enduring Spirit of Calamity," feels like
's most defining statement to date, combining all of the band's sonic preferences into an exquisite corpse of death metal possibilities that, like all that came before it, pairs unrelenting malevolence with the majestic disinterest of the cosmos. ~ James Christopher Monger