FESSUS hailing from Vienna, Austria are a Death Metal band. After recording one live album with their early material, they release now their debut album "Subcutaneous Tomb". It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Thomas Taube (AZAZEN; LUNAR AURORA; MOLTEN CHAINS). The album has a length of about 35 minutes, and it was released via German Black and Death Metal specialists Darkness Shall Rise Productions. The album starts with powerful guitar riffs, accompanied by the double-bass drums at a measured tempo. It takes a little while for "Pointless Anguish" to transition into the verse part. It starts a little bit sluggish, but there is soon a subtle change towards mid-tempo. The vocals are growls and they vary around the medium end of the guttural range. In the following, the texture of the track is an alternation of verses at measured tempo, followed by the bridge and chorus parts at mid-tempo. The break is doom-laden, slow and delivers grim melodies. "Asphyxiate In Exile" starts with a short drum and bass driven pre-lude, leading into a slow verse part at a sluggish rhythm. The melodies are spine-chilling and the riffing is accompanied by plenty of double-bass drumming. The vocals offer a few tonal shifts towards slightly higher growls. There are a few twists and turns in tempo and rhythm as there is a fast part included in the track. The break delivers a short lead guitar solo.

"Cries From The Ether" continues with the tempo and rhythm for the preceding tracks, however, there are a few frantic breaks added to the track. The melodies are grim, the vocals are pretty monotone with exception of a few higher pitched notes. The fast parts add a different dimension to the track. The break and the lead guitar solo are played blisteringly fast. Altogether, the track is quite lengthy and repetitive at times. During the second half of the track, the vocals are a lot more versatile with many higher pitched growls added. The final part of the seven minutes track has a few Doom Metal vibes with a slow tempo and chilling melodies. "The Depths Of Lividity" continues with the mixture of Death and Doom Metal alternating from mid-tempo to measured tempo. The guitar riffing is devastating, and the vocals use growls across the whole guttural range. As with the previous tracks, there are many twists in tempo during the track. The break offers an extended lead guitar solo. "The Depths Of Lividity" was released as video, and the YouTube link is provided below. "Yizkor" starts at a measured tempo with bone-chilling melodies and mainly deep-lying growls. There is an abrupt break, where the track continues at crazy pace for some time, slowly going back to the measured tempo, which is driven by the double-bass drumming. The following is a back and forth between the slow and the fast parts, where the short lead guitar solo is performed at crazy pace. The final episode of the track is once again Doom inspired in terms of tempo, riffing, and melodies.

The album finishes with "Living Funeral". It needs some time to develop a sluggish rhythm and punishing riffs for the verse part. The vocals are mainly deep growls with very few shifts. As with many of the tracks, there is a lot of repetition in the riffing and that makes the final journey of the album a bit lengthy. Finally, there is a bit versatility as short bursts of insane tempo and some lead guitar contributions are added to the track. FESSUS deliver a decent debut album. "Subcutaneous Tomb" offers darkness and doom. The majority of the tracks are slow with sluggish rhythms and monotonicity in the guitar riffing and vocals. However, every track also delivers drastic tempo shifts. The album sound is a bit muddy with room for improvement in production. "Subcutaneous Tomb" delivers a mixture of Death and Doom Metal, and fans of those genres might like what they hear.