WOMBBATH "Beyond The Abyss" LP

WOMBBATH "Beyond The Abyss" LP (Pulverised Records 2025)

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Cult Swedish maestros WOMBBATH return both with album number 7 Beyond The Abyss and Pulverised Records, ten years after first working together.

Back in 2015, once Wombbath had decided to reunite and started working on a comeback album, the result Downfall Rising was released through Pulverised. Although four more full-length followed on other labels, both have decided to reunite for what is probably the band boldest yet at the same time meanest record ever, Beyond The Abyss, described by guitarist and original member Håkan Stuvermark as the “first album in a decade we’ve been welded together this good musically. It’s just there!”

The songwriting started six months after the release of their last album to date Agma in the spring of ’22. “I had a bunch of songs written and so did Jonny (Pettersson, vocals), and Thomas (van Wachenfeldt, who joined on guitar in 2018) was about to. But our then drummer Jon Rudin’s decision to leave the band forced us to change our plans. It’s only once we found his replacement, former DEAD SHAPE FIGURE Antti Silventoinen, that we resumed our course.”

With ten tracks carefully sequenced with the help of former AMON AMARTH and close friend Anders Biazzi, Stuvemark says about the result that it has “the sound and vibe from Agma, yet it still turned out more evil and angrier, although I reckon this wasn’t exactly planned. Often when creating the output depends on where you are in life at the moment…  We all knew how good this album would be but I don’t think any of us actually understood that until we heard the final mix with everything on it.  It was a ‘cowabunga moment’! Every time I listen to it, it puts a smile on my face and I have butterflies in my belly. Death metal happiness!”

For the guitar player, there’s definitively only one WOMBBATH. “I would say the foundations were laid with Downfall Rising and we’ve been building upon it ever since. My main inspirations remain CARCASS, ENTOMBED, DISMEMBER and EDGE OF SANITY but there’s always nice additions being made, like harmonies, odd notes, violin etc. In a way, each album is an extension from the previous one and Beyond The Abyss is no exception”, with even greater contribution by von Wachenfeldt, not only on guitar but on violin as well, with an even greater attention to the symphonic element.

For Pettersson, it’s just the proof that they’re well aware of what their roots are, yet without forgetting we’re not living in 1993 anymore: “with this album, we wanted to push the progressive elements first displayed on Agma, but at the same time make the album our most old school since the early days of WOMBBATH. Where Agmawas fairly clean, Beyond The Abyss is dark, filthy and, in a way, more organic. With one foot in the early days of death metal and one foot in the future, Beyond The Abyss is the sound of us bringing our legacy forward.”