ALBUM REVIEW: Portal Tombs – Mass Worship

When it comes to all things heavy, few nations deliver the goods quite like Sweden. Death, doom, djent, prog – you name it; chances are you can think of at least one band who sit at or near the top of each scene. Now looking to carve their own name into their nation’s long and storied metallic history are Stockholm’s MASS WORSHIP. Taking inspiration from their countrymen and forefathers in the likes of AT THE GATES and MESHUGGAH, while also owing an obvious debt to the sludgier fare of US bands like NEUROSIS and MASTODON, their second full-length Portal Tombs arrives this Friday via Century Media Records.

As anyone who heard MASS WORSHIP’s 2019 self-titled debut might expect, Portal Tombs is a cold and unforgiving record. Over nine tracks, the band deal largely in punishing, tech-tinged riffing and scorched, apocalyptic vocals – all caked in bleak sludge. It places them in somewhat similar territory to the hair-raising heaviness of recent records from bands like ERDVE and LLNN, with any genre descriptor beyond ‘sheer violence’ proving relatively limiting. The MESHUGGAH influence often comes through pretty clearly too, although this album rarely gets as mind-bendingly polyrhythmic as they do.

Helping MASS WORSHIP unleash such violence is the record’s seriously suffocating production job. The bass often takes particular prominence, rumbling away beneath down-tuned guitars to drag listeners further and further into the mire. The drums cut through too, adding a raw and propulsive groove to a record that rarely lets up. It results in a relatively unique sound, one that eschews the more perfectly polished fare of many modern metal records, but without ever feeling too muddy or murky for the band to get their point across. 

With Portal Tombs sitting in a pretty relentlessly heavy place from start to finish, it’s hard to pick individual highlights. That said, it doesn’t get much more gloriously oppressive than the album’s fourth track and recent single Orcus Mouth. It’s a monstrous track, its crushing savagery embellished by some impressive guest turns from Jonas Stålhammar of AT THE GATES and Jonas Renkse of BLOODBATH and KATATONIA, who lend a guitar solo and clean vocals to proceedings respectively. 

Sensibly, MASS WORSHIP do drop a few moments of quiet and variation into Portal Tombs; fifth track Unholy Mass’ ponderous guitar-driven open only makes its last-minute burst of brutality hit that much harder, for example. Elsewhere, Empyrean Halls’ brief acoustic guitar intro has a similar effect – a sort of calm before an almighty storm. It’s moments like these which help keep listeners hanging on to all of Portal Tombs’ 38 and a half minutes; the band’s attack rarely wears thin, and the record ends pretty much exactly when it should. On that note, album closer Deliverance provides a particularly stunning finale. Sprawling across a fulsome seven and a half minute runtime, it captures something of a post-metal-esque grandeur, with soaring guitars and a steady, weighty groove ending the record on an epic note.

All told, Portal Tombs is a work of gripping, crushing force from a band who feel like they still have more to offer. To say it’s a joy to be in the place MASS WORSHIP take you to is perhaps the wrong word, but it is hard not to relish in this album’s sheer desolation. It’s bleak through and through, and proof yet again that no-one does metal quite like the Swedes.

Rating: 8/10

Portal Tombs is set for release on February 4th via Century Media Records.

Like MASS WORSHIP on Facebook.