This new album from the Panamanian project, DOOMSLUT, is considered funeral drone doom/dark ambient metal. Their Bandcamp page refers to the album thusly:

"The Choking Grip Of Guilt" presents the project's most intense work to date, an absolutely deep and emotional masterpiece of dark and brutally heavy music that transports you to another dimension. This album is a true journey through the hardships of life, the path to self-destruction, and the pain of loss and emotional decay."

I am not a fan of this style of music. In most cases, I find funeral doom to be uneventful and bland. The only exceptions that I can recall are EVOKEN and AHAB, and I can only tolerate those artists in small doses.

"The Choking Grip Of Guilt" isn't as dense as most funeral doom albums, largely due to the fact that the drone elements are, in most cases, electronic tones instead of sustained guitar notes. The first track, "Emotionally Eroding," begins with an electronic hum. Shortly thereafter, gothic-style vocals are delivered. After a long wait, the growled vocals come in and slightly alleviate the previously established boring introduction. There are also some screams that I found to be a nice complement to the growled vocals. Eventually, the song ends with more spoken goth lyrics and some electronic droning.

Following "Emotionally Eroding" is the title track, which is marginally more entertaining than its predecessor. This one has more heavy moments and a couple of drum rolls that introduce the growling. There are some more goth-style spoken lyrics, which I didn't care for. Overall, the song is denser than the first track, and that makes for a slightly more enjoyable listen.

The next three tracks all have the staples of this subgenre: droning tones, heavy sustained guitar notes, sparse drumming, some sampling, and growled/screamed vocals. It's not until the album's last three tracks that they become interesting again. "Negative" starts with a pleasant droning tone and introduces some slow guitar strumming. This track has the most interesting guitar parts on the album. There are slow, heavy notes, slow wails, and slow fuzzy notes. Most of the track's vocals consist of a sample of a man pontificating about death. What little singing there is consists of overlapping growls and screams that work well together.

If I had to pick a favorite track on this album, it would have to be "Ghost Whispers." Most of the lyrics are whispered. There are only three growls throughout its eight-minute runtime. The guitar is, once again, played painfully slowly, and when the drums come in, the song might even exceed ten beats per minute. All joking aside, this track establishes its ambiance well and is actually ominous and creepy.

I found the final track, "Drowning In Bongwater," to be silly, which, I reckon, is not the approach Tinieblas was going for. The song begins with the sound of air bubbles in water. That's a little too "on the nose" for my liking. What's worse is that the bubble sounds persist throughout the entirety of this eleven-minute track. All of the usual suspects are present as well. There are whispers, growls, and slow ambient music. All of the vocals have an echo. The echoing is so prominent that it makes discerning what the lyrics are nearly impossible. I understand the approach since the song is about drowning, but I feel like the echoes shouldn't have eclipsed the sound of the vocals.

Perhaps this album just isn't for me. I am not a fan of slow, drawn-out music that continues to build with no tangible climax. With "The Choking Grip Of Guilt," DOOMSLUT set out to establish a somber, ominous tone. It's possible that fans of this style of music will get more out of this album than I did. I can see this album being excellent background music for doing household chores, but when it comes to listening critically, this one did not do it for me.