θoʊθ – Ruins of Gubla (Song Premiere | Review)

Via my friend ‘Mogel‘ of Kellerassel Records I have been made aware of an ominous new combo that he will soon release as a tape. It’s about θoʊθ a death doom band of the particularly rough kind, which has dedicated itself thematically to the ancient phoenician culture and offers their first four songs on their debut EP Ruins Of Gubla. So much in advance, you can expect an inimitable dirty hell ride that will make you sweat and teach you fear. Today you can already listen to the first track and get an idea of the sound and what a wicked brute is coming your way.

The four songs that θoʊθ present on their first output are extremely harsh and come along in such a dirty production that one could assume an expeditionary team found this tape during excavation works and found out that it can still be transcribed. The dragging Death Doom drones incredibly hard and lets especially the guitar playing come to the forefront. The riffing sounds as primitive as the sound quality, but gradually unfolds a hypnotic effect and generally sounds very exotic.
In addition to the heavy doomparts, you also get to deal with some musical outbursts of violence, where the tempo is tightened immensely and which are intimidatingly brutal with the help of bitterly evil blast beats and bestial growls. Occasionally, the guitars are leering, revealing influences from sludge metal that add variety to the sound and keep the slower doomparts from becoming monotonous. In order to condense the mysterious oriental setting θoʊθ furthermore work noise elements into it, which round off the already rumbling sound very well. Although the quality sounds completely raw as already described, the drums always seem to be really punishing and push forward, thus putting a certain veil of fear on the listener, which is maintained throughout the record. In a way, you feel haunted by the music and simply can’t escape it, whether you want to or not.

I can’t remember the last time I was so enchanted by such bad sound, used as a deliberate stylistic device to authentically convey the terrifying atmosphere. Creating the intended charm of abysmal and oppressive extreme metal, θoʊθ has definitely succeeded and fully unfolds a captivating effect in all four tracks, especially in the 3rd song ‘Trumpets of None Ѭ Kingdom of All‘ which is completly instrumental, but whose melody taught me to be terrified and at the same time made me incredibly angry and incited. Accordingly, this track is also my personal favorite on this record but also it works out very will in combination of the other three rotten beasts you get offered on Ruins of Gubla.

As mentioned before, the tape version of this record will be released soon on Kellerassel Records. The Pre Order starts today and should be noticed by all fans of rotting, viscous 90’s Death Doom. θoʊθ is not for the faint of heart and delivers a really captivating trip that resembles an ancient musical nightmare and can authentically convey the phoenician theme that has been targeted. Ruins Of Gubla sounds more frightening , dusty and filthy than a collapsing cave during excavation work in the sun-soaked arabian desert and those who like the genre simply won’t be able to get enough of it , I promise!