Mass Worship – Portal Tombs | Album Review

They might be tagged as “death metal” but describing Mass Worship solely as that does them a great disservice. Their self-titled debut showcased a blend of doom, sludge, black and death metal with a hint of hardcore to it. Second album Portal Tombs doubles down on this, expanding on atmosphere, finding new ways to work in flourishes of melody and balance it against a sense of desolation and despair. 

Portal Tombs is not a happy album; its sole aim seems to be to choke all happiness from the world. It’s suffocating and oppressively bleak in tone and outlook, refusing to acknowledge even a sliver of hope. ‘Specular Void’ opens the album with grinding guitar and bellowing vocals that exude nothing but misanthropy. It trades in hardcore sludge and death metal, delivering batterings flecked with traces of Neurosis in its punishing heaviness. The title track descends into death metal chaos, double bass drums pulverising ears and vertebrae alike before offering breathing space that’s just as bleak with ominous lines of melody.

Similarly, ‘Revel In Fear’ does just that, offering up dissonance and throat-rending roars to bludgeon and force listeners into submission. They break up the bleakly oppressive atmosphere for a brief few seconds with a dissonant solo that is swiftly ripped away again to descend once more into the pit. Another curveball comes as it opts to swap distortion for clean guitars, offering another solo that’s far more melodious with hints of heavy or even power metal thrown in. It ushers in a sense of beauty that’s accentuated by the ugly batterings delivered either side of it, and it’s arguably at this point Portal Tombs goes from merely good to being something rather special. 

Though Mass Worship’s modus operandi is so often to batter mercilessly, it’s when they deviate from this, even momentarily, that Portal Tombs shines. The aforementioned melodic breaks of ‘Revel In Fear’, the leads of ‘Orcus Mouth’ that offer a glimpse of the sky – grey though it may be – and the instrumental interlude ‘Unholy Mass’ showcase a range that extends beyond dissonant brutality.

Special mention must go to closing track ‘Deliverance’; at seven and a half minutes, it’s the longest song on the album and it makes use of every second. Though it opens with acoustic guitar, it swiftly moves over to sludgier and even post metal territories. Its middle movement offers yearning leads and barked, but no less emotional vocals that are shot through with pain and desperation. It’s, frankly, an incredible ending to an already remarkable album, offering the deliverance of its name after the punishment the previous tracks meted out. 

What to make, then, of Portal Tombs? Simply put, it’s a leap forward for the band that takes the sound of their debut and ups the ante in every conceivable way. It’s more dissonant, more melodic, more harrowing yet more beautiful in its most pained moments. Death metal isn’t, but essential listening for fans of bleak, emotional extreme metal this most certainly is.