UTTERTOMB is a death metal band from Chile who formed in 2009 as ULTRATOMB before changing their name in 2011 to their current moniker. After a series of demos, EPs, splits, and a compilation album, the band is ready to unleash their full-length debut “Nebulas of Self-Desecration.” And it is absolutely stunning. Everything about this album is near perfect. The guitar tone, the atmosphere…it has so much going for it and succeeds on every level. It could be argued that it’s so cavernous that it’s just basically a wall of sound. I can understand that but there is something to be said about the general mood and vibe of the album...it’s so lightless and murky, even when the band is playing a million miles an hour.

The band isn’t only concerned with bludgeoning, however. Slower, more doom inspired tempos are peppered throughout, for when the band really wants to take their name in showing you the power of true darkness. In their faster moments, the guitars are like a boulder racing downhill, forever gaining momentum and becoming more unstoppable by the moment. In their more doomy passages, the slow, unfathomable darkness envelops in a suffocating bleakness that isn’t for the faint of heart. Every second of this album is painful, scary, abrasive, and straight up against the grain.

The album opens with the intro song, “Nec Spe Nec Metu,” and it does a fantastic job in building up the album’s tension and leading into the first song. That first song, “Exhumation of the Womb’s Splendour,” immediately begins to create a frenzied wrath of guitars and drums. The bass is a void that threatens to overtake it all but the mix keeps the instruments in the darkness together. The vocals seem unreal and fit the mood of the music. Around the 3:40 mark, the band reveals a secret weapon in their frightening arsenal: clean tones. In their own way they are just has heavy as the distortion and offer only a further plunge into the unknown rather than a respite.

“Opisthotonic Funerals,” embraces doom metal with some of the best riffs on the album. The guitars and bass are thick and laced with a deep tone that seems bottomless. I love the stalking rhythm—bestial and unforgiving. A sudden burst of speed in the later half of the song splits the atmosphere open like a crack of thunder before the moody tones take over again. “Seraphobia,” is more like a sickening feeling of trepidation set to music than an actual song. It’s one of my favorites on the album because it’s such a sterling representation of what death metal is supposed to be: Fearful, scary, and hopeless. The song crushes and grooves until the last couple minutes when ambient sounds fade the song out. Harrowing, to say the least.

The title track closes the album and it’s a tower and monolithic effigy to everything that came before. The clean and heavy tones mix in the beginning to create a sound that is arcane and ancient. The vocals meld into the song, seemingly a lost nightmare searching for something to cure its hunger as it stalks long lost corridors. The middle portion of the song is a banger that effortlessly slides into a slower tempo, without a lost of any intensity or fire.

An impressive ending for a truly impressive album. I’m blown away that "Nebulas of Self-Desecration," is their debut. I hope they can grab hold of its success and use it to take their sound to the next level for their second album. I’ll definitely be waiting impatiently for it.