From Bandcamp, “CATACOMBS’ debut album, “In the Depths of R’lyeh,” is an amalgam of colossal, cataclysmic heaviness and haunting, beyond-the shade darkness. Bordering on the macabre and most definitely unsettling, “In the Depths of R’lyeh” will soon be mentioned in the same breath as such defiant doom/death legends as DISEMBOWELMENT, UNHOLY, SKEPTICISM, THERGORTHON, and WINTER. Look out below, precisely where CATACOMBS is.” The album has six songs, and the title track is first. The opening riff is weighted, and dissonant, and the guttural sound like they come from the bowels of the earth. The riffs are repeated until the create a hypnotic effect on the listener, and the dissonance grows.

“Dead Dripping City” is a 17-minute opus, beginning very slowly, akin to a slumbering beast waking up from a six-month hibernation, and the deep guttural sound like his stirring breaths. There is a very slow build from there, and there is a deliberate disconnect between the vocals and the music. “At the Edge of the Abyss” is a little shorter, but still clocks in at close to 14 minutes. As if the cavernous sound could possibly get any deeper, it does, seeming to descend into the deepest pit of Hell. What you can hear in the song are the noises buried deep beneath the earth, and they sound absolutely harrowing.

“Where No Light Hath Shone... (But for that of the Moon)” has a bit more sonority out of the gate, but the gutturals still sound like the frigid breaths of a mountain beast coming out to protect his lair. Each one threatens to turn the listener into a block of ice that would take years to thaw. “Fallen Into Shadows” is another lengthy offering, coming in at just under 17 minutes. Clean, solemn guitar tones open the song, before the inevitable breath of the giant cover the land in pestilence and doom. From there, the sound grow more harrowing. The repeated riffs are like subliminal messages…they seem innocuous at first but the longer you listen, the more you fall under their spell.

“Awakening of the World’s Doom (Reprise)” closes the album, and it’s a short two minutes. It seems to bring back to light the heavy doom sound of the album with an ominous warning…turn away now, or meet your demise. This was a fantastic album, and within the genre of Doom, one of the more extreme examples of how deep into the abyss it can plunge. It reminded me of total darkness, or even the temperature where all life theoretically stops…otherwise known as zero degrees Kelvin. If you take a dive into this album, you won’t return to the world of the living.