When a band is pitched as “death metal”, there are certain tropes that the listener will expect. There are the pnrumatic drums – an integral part of the death metal sound, from the genre’s formative years, due to the brutal assault of bands like Suffocation – and the guttural vocals, often associated with the genre’s bigger names like Death and Entombed. You’d probably also expect to hear speed driven, huge sounding bass grinds, often providing a pivotal aspect to the aural assault.

Croatian band In Dakhma’s debut album ‘He Who Sows The Ground’ features all of that…and more. Check out ‘Sacrum’ and you’ll find a classic death metal sound delivered with a genuine enthusiasm; listen to ‘In Dogma’ and you’ll discover a hardcore infused bass part colliding with thrash riffs that are direct descendants from Sepultura’s massively influential ‘Arise’. Elsewhere, ‘Lies Beyond The Golden Ruins’ colours the band’s riffs with a hard nod towards groove metal, and the epic closer ‘Tower of Silence’ introduces sludgy riffs to bring something even heavier to the fore.

These musicians clearly have a broad set of metallic influences, and no matter where the music takes them, the end results are impressive. However, given their death metal core, their current single ‘Sentinel Hill’ is, perhaps, their most interesting offering of all, since it actually features nothing that immediately connects them with the genre.

An oppressively slow bass riff opens the number, bringing a very dark atmosphere, before a shredding guitar sound suggests a huge influence might come from one of Slayer’s slower numbers. Then, everything takes a detour into pure doom territory, where the riffs take on the funereal tempo of band’s like Electric Wizard, coupled with the sludgy tones of Acid King and Byzanthian Neckbeard.

With a riff in place, an equally deep vocal pushes everything forward, until the band reaches an even slower tempo, with distorted grooves attacking at a crawl, whilst insanely heavy bass work reinforces the weighty sound. It’s far more about riffs than vocal prowess, but lovers of classic doom and sludge metal sounds will find an immediate kinship here, and with a hint of goth creeping in for an atmospheric finish, this is an impressively dark and heavy workout that leaves absolutely nothing to chance.

Take a listen below.