This drum play-through is Justin Spaeth of Tombs, playing “Bone Furnace,” which is the opening track from the forthcoming Tombs album, Under Sullen Skies. What makes this particular play-through unique is the fact that the footage was actually captured in the studio (Frightbox Recording in Passaic, NJ) as he was tracking the drums heard on the actual album. This is footage from the actual recording session and technically not a play-along or play-through at all. One angle was recorded on his cell phone, the other on an old Go Pro Hero.
Album Credits:
Recording and Mixing: Fright Box Studios, Clifton, NJ, USA
Producer/Sound Engineer: Bobby Torres
Mastering: Alan Douches
‘Under Sullen Skies’ sales/streaming link: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/tombs-skies
Justin Spaeth was born and raised in Highlands, NJ, which he continues to call home. He first plopped himself behind a drum kit over 20 years ago and, to this day, has rarely emerged from behind it. Presently, he can be seen holding court for NY/NJ post-black metal veterans, Tombs, a position he’s held since 2017, performing on the band’s last two releases Monarchy of Shadows and new album Under Sullen Skies and backstopping the band through a number of tours including opening slots for Kreator, Goatwhore, 1349 and Crowbar, an appearance at Ozzfest Meets Knotfest and various headliners. Spaeth has long-demonstrated a wealth of versatility at his craft, parlaying his scope of interest and experience into a variety of styles of extreme music from thrash and death metal to deathcore and black metal as a current and ex-member of Kalopsia, Putrascension, Hammer Fight, Abacinate and Nothing is Scared. He’s also filled-in in a pinch for Dysentery and Suffer the Living for tours and live shows and, given his versatility, is fully deserving of his long-time nickname, “Ninja.”
Justin’s Gear:
Drums – Yamaha Stage Custom Birch
– 22″ Kick
– 10″ Tom
– 12″ Tom 2
– 16″ Floor Tom
Pork Pie Big Black 14″ Snare Drum
Heads – Evans/Remo
– Evans Genera HD Dry on Snare
– Remo Pinstripe heads on all toms
– Remo Powerstroke 3, Clear on Kick.
Cymbals – Zildjian/Meinl
Zildjian 14” A Custom Hi-hats
Zildjian 18” A Custom Fast Crash Cymbal
Zildjian 19” A Custom Crash Cymbal
Zildjian 18” A Custom China Cymbal
Meinl 20” Mb10 Bell Blast Ride Cymbal
Sticks – Los Cabos Drumsticks – 5B Maple
Bass Drum Pedals – Tama Iron Cobra
Tombs Social links:
https://www.facebook.com/TombsBklyn/
https://www.instagram.com/tombscult/
https://twitter.com/TOMBS666
https://tombscult.bandcamp.com/
Tombs Lineup:
Mike Hill – guitars, vocals, electronics, synth
Matt Medeiros – guitars
Drew Murphy – bass, vocals
Under Sullen Skies is this lineup’s second kick at twisting black metal’s DNA around dank emotional corners, psychological turmoil and the urban underbelly all of which is unavoidably colored and touched by the present-day status of life on this here Earth.
“The album’s title came during all this and the sort of post-apocalyptic world we’re living in,” Mike Hill explains. “It encapsulates an overall feeling of gloom and depression which is pretty much how we’ve been living for most of this year. The title was the last piece to fall into place. I remember standing on the roof of the building I was living in at the time on a grey day and it was raining – actually, it wasn’t even raining; it was a half-assed attempt at rain! – and depressing and I just thought, ‘What a sullen sky’ and it just stuck with me.”
The album starts with “Bone Collector,” a furious blast of melodic black metal that shifts gears towards an anthemic fist-pumping slog through the goth rock-thrash metal Venn Diagram. “Void Constellation” takes as many cues from Peaceville Three gloom and doom as it does the death metal stomp of Obituary and Incantation. “Descensum” mines the various well-worn parts of Ride the Lightning for influence before blasting the doors open with some startlingly spacious chromatic single-note atonality. As the album progresses, further textures and moods are employed via acoustic instrumentation and keyboards as well as sampled soundscapes all butting heads with furious second wave black metal and sly to nods to death rock heroes Sisters of Mercy and Fields of the Nephilim, all of the band’s motivations and interests being dropped into the chameleonic pair of tracks closing the album, “Sombre Ruin” and the appropriately titled “Plague Years.”
“‘Barren’ stands out as the song that’s most collaborative,” notes Hill. “Justin wrote the a bulk of the riffs on that one, that sort of NWOBHM/Scorpions ending part is something I came up with, Matt added a bunch of guitar harmonies over it and Drew’s bass is laid thick underneath. That one is one of the biggest group efforts and one of the strongest songs on the record.
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