Internal Caustic Torments

We are living in a pretty excellent time for death metal, not necessarily because of the quality of recent outputs, although there is a lot of good stuff around, but because this OSDM revival has made every man and his dog start up a label with at least a couple of obscure gems reissued. Not only are things easier to find, long forgotten and under-appreciated albums and bands are finally getting noticed by the simple of factor of being put out into the same, global scene of similar minded labels and linked fandoms. Wombbath are a band who had their reissue pretty much perfectly destined for a huge response; it was re-released in the pre-saturation year of 2010, before there were seventy-five 1990-95 reissues a year for hungry OSDM fans to dig into; it was released by Necroharmonic, who had built a solid following through their works with stellar bands such as Interment, Funebrarum, Crematory and Disciples of Mockery; it had cover art which stood the test of time as some of the best ever; and it was from 1993 and from Sweden. It's no real surprise that the album did actually achieve some of this surefire success, but in turn it did prove something else; contrary to the many, many convincing examples, not everything that was lost to the sands of time in early 90s was a hidden gem, some of it was middling as fuck and deserved to go missing.

There are only three notable things about Wombbath's album. Firstly they're a Swedish band existing in what is generally considered to be the peak era of the scene, yet they don't sound remotely like Swedeath. Second, they've got a really, really nice production for a little nobody band with three years experience which no one cared about, admittedly some of this may be from the reissue's touch up though. And finally, they are just about the shittiest midpaced groove based old school death metal band to ever exist, and it's impressive seeing someone pull off literally the most simplistic idea ever with such amateurism and lack of character.

That first thing really doesn't bother me at all to be honest. I've never really been much of a traditional Swedeath fan; I never found the thrashiness of the riffs hugely appealing, I never found the bands either brutal or imposing enough to really rock me, nor did I find them atmospheric or strange enough to appeal to me in less vitriolic ways, and I've always felt the majority of the bands covered too many of the same concepts and borrowed too many similar production and vocal ideas. As such most of my preferred Swedish bands have played music which hasn't been overly in line with the usual sound of buzzsaw tones and moderately played and mixed d-beats, such as Uncanny or Carbonized. Internal Caustic Torments largely dips into idea pools I'm more fond of, but it kinda sucks at their main target, and is only average at the other bits of flair.

Primarily, Wombbath like to play midpaced, lurching, chugging death metal in the vein of Cianide, Baphomet, Gutted or Rottrevore. It's a rather simple style of the death metal genre, and I certainly think the more active styles out there have higher peaks, but there is a lot of good stuff out there playing with concept, and it seems to be a pretty basic concept to pull off at least somewhat competently. Wombbath are not that competent. The guitar tone is heavy and successfully sounds pretty destructive, but that's the only thing these guys have gotten right about this sound. The riffs are as faceless as any riffs have ever been, none of the them ever pick up a catchy groove to drag you along, or pummel with enough force to be imposing; they're just the most listless, drab chugs death metal has ever seen. They're not dark, they're not evil, they're not catchy and they're not heavy, what's left for them to be? Boring. They are an exceptionally shallow and poor rendition of the concept, checking off the basic description of "it's slow and simple" but bringing nothing more to the table to actually make the sound appealing. The riffs lack the necessary character to make the simplicity and minimalism seem more impressive than a childish first attempt.

In addition to the sucky medium speed riffs are the sucky drums and laughable growls. The drums are probably the most Swedish thing here, namely in that they make damn sure they don't get in the way. They keep time, they clunk along, they don't really help create any worthwhile grooves or any sense of urgency or violence. They add more boredom to the mundane pile and absolutely nothing more. The growls move beyond the typical approach of maximal mediocrity and cross over into being plain old shit. There's nothing deep or profound to say about them and why they suck; there are no major ideas that have failed, the dude just can't growl very well. He's got quite a short grunting, barking growl rather than a dense roaring or rumbling one, which can work pretty well in some cases, Infester for instance, but Tomas Lindfors has no power, no edge, no violence. He's low pitched enough, but he's airy and too easily decipherable which leaves him sounding like he's growling at speaking volume at best. Between the two of them, the drummer and growler here make damn sure the boring chugs here are as lifeless as any death metal has ever been.

On the plus side, the band actually does have a very nice tendency to break up the lunking plod sessions on a semi-regular basis. Again, they do this in quite un-Swedish ways, their fast work predominantly features reasonably clean tremolo work which brings to mind more Finnish sounds, albeit without the weirdness and alien touches. These aren't wonderful riffs for the most part, with a few notable exceptions like the descending melody in the last fast part of "Corporal Punishment", or the demented melody in the opener, but by and large it's simply the extra vigor itself which makes them better. The energy of the guitar work and tempo successfully manages to hide how drab the drumming is, and making the singer bark faster hides how tame his voice is, and compared to the lifeless crawl that is the bulk of the album it's quite exciting. There are a couple of attempts at solos along the way, but they're quite clearly played by a band with three years experience and with no courage to just make entertainingly messy noise instead, so you basically get a few really simple fret runs which fail to impress either musically or technically.

It's kinda sad knowing that the basic tenets of one of my favourite genres are as simple as they are, or that the standards for entry are so low, but despite all this, it isn't really bad. It's as generic as 90's death metal ever got, and an album of just the midpaced to slow stuff would be worth a 30 or so, but it still checks off the basic early 90's check boxes of "lots of riffs" and "be generally unfriendly". Even if very few of these riffs are any good, and that's still enough for me to say this isn't uncomfortable to sit through or anything, it's just not very impressive or noteworthy. It's not until the "atmospheric" side of the genre got played up with the revival that the riff counts really started to fall and bands started running these sort of simplistic approaches into the ground. I can see why people could still find this pretty cool, and to anyone just looking for any old death metal riffs this album certainly provides them with a nice guitar sound, and that really is enough for me to say that its worth a mediocre score; plodding, simple OSDM is just that dang easy it seems.

Internal Caustic Torments isn't worthy of its second wind of popularity, or worthy of its awesome cover art which is so good that I still wish I bought the version with a shirt bundled, despite thinking the album is mostly crud. It's just a middle of the road album which deserved to die quietly while the actually interesting bands moved on past, nothing more, nothing less. It just strikes me as a little odd to see this band get a fairly good rep as one of these “should have been bigger bands”, which are usually either bands that were too weird for many to appreciate, or an excellent rendition of something already popular, this is just a nothing album really. There is nothing worthwhile about this album, but I can sit through it without wanting to bash my head in, such is the curse of lower quality early 90s death metal.

Oh wait! Wombbarse! Yes that's a much better title, it rhymes and everything! Eh, I'm not scrolling back up for this band.

When it comes to re-releasing the old albums I'm always sceptical a little. Sure, many of them are needed as hell as the chance to get the original pressing may be very minimal - and the price ridiculous. But often I have an impression that re-releases are done with too small effort and doesn't give the justice to the original recording. I just like if the label when decides to re-release something remembers about adding some demo tracks, a nice booklet and such stuff. Meanwhile I got this LP version of “Internal Caustic Torments” re-released in 2009 and what I see is just a plain vinyl, without any extras, there are no lyrics, band's history and such stuff. Shame really. Seems that only CRYPT Records knows how to do it properly (as spoilsme with their many re-releases ha, ha!).

Anyway, it's always great to get such albums on LP. This WOMBBATH debut full length is simply an astonishing, classic death metal record – despite the origin it’s not totally in the Swedish style, but again in the most groovy and strong BENEDICTION vein. WOMBBATH managed to put out an album, which fulfils all the expectations in my opinion. First of all, the production is really good. It’s hasn’t got the typical Swedish sound – which is fine, because it wouldn’t fit the songs. The sound is damn more aggressive and heavy than your average Swedish recording. It gives the songs a feeling and vitality, makes them even stronger and tighter. Surely they did great job when producing “Internal Caustic Torments”.

But the songs also don’t disappoint. We’ve got here one real oldie – “Beyond the Gloomy” from the “Brutal Mights” demo. This was my favourite track on the demo, so it’s cool to listen to it again, with better production and slightly re-arranged. Strong shit, I’m telling you. But the new songs are much better. The opener “Prevent Anemia” is just fantastic, with the groovy mid paced riffing, which is easily memorable and catchy, has some cool melodies, amazing vocal parts, but as overall is still damn brutal. As death metal should be.

From this very first song I knew that “Internal Caustic Torments” is an album, which is even stronger than any LP that BENEDICTION has ever recorded!!!!!! Yeah, this isn't a joke, I like WOMBBATH more! Great achievement, dare I to say. But let's get back to the music. Songs that follow "Prevent Anemia" don’t disappoint. Each has something to offer – brutality, catchy riffs, groovy parts, mid paced headbangers’ friendly riffage, as well as some occasional grinding fast moments, huge voice of Tomas, some great melodies – which aren’t present in every song, but only here and there… “Abandon” comes out of these songs as the most original one, having more epic mood, underlined by the keyboard parts. Cool song, really, which gives some diversity to the death metal aura of the album. Keyboards are also present in another epic track, “Conceal Interior Torments”, which is almost like early HYPOCRISY – to my opinion another band we can compare WOMBBATH to. Slow in some parts, with the keyboards – this song is really dark and heavy.

But the more I listen to“Internal Caustic Torments” I start to realize that this album hasn’t really got anything I wouldn’t like. To my taste this is a complete death metal album, which is almost perfect in every detail. A real shame that it never has been well received and through the years became almost forgotten as it doesn’t deserve to rot in the underground. To me it's a classic.

Albums like this should make people realize how thankful they all should be for the brief golden ages of early death metal. Of course, this album being released in 1993, it was nothing new. But it does have qualities that put it well above any albums that may have gained popularity subsequent to its release. It is also an album that will never bore a fan of old school death metal, and I can see many putting this atop their list of favorites.


By nature, it is very clean-cut, but also dynamically suited in every way. Both guitar distortion and technique are influenced by Death and Morbid Angel. A few riffs in the song “As Silent As the Grave” will be reminiscent to fans fond of “Immortal Rites”. Although the Death and Morbid Angel comparison still has some blemishes, as Wombbath do not play nearly as technical as Death or Morbid Angel. Also, Wombbath, as I said before, are very clean-cut, so this album is not nearly as “epic” as, say, “Altars of Madness” is. The vocals share some influence with David Vincent, but a bit lower toned and more about the guttural sickness than the mid-pitched vocals of Vincent. The drums never really stand out, but are mixed great in the production and the snare and bass drums have a great sound.


“Corporal Punishment” is probably the best Death-influenced song on “Internal Caustic Torments”, with an amazing riff right in the middle that will always have owners of this album flocking to that particular part of the song. Some songs have that affect, and this one is a great example, no doubt.


I recommend this album to a great extent. With all the influence from the big name death metal bands, and coming from the highly acclaimed Swedish death metal era, this album still is not like anything I’ve heard in it’s area, and will please every single fan that has the pleasure of hearing it.