Since emerging from the darkest crevices of Lexington, Kentucky back in 2008, Tombstalker have served as one of the South’s foremost purveyors of stomping death metal terror. Despite having just a single long-player under their belts – 2015’s vicious Black Crusades – the band have stayed busy, releasing a half dozen splits, demos, and EPs. The latest of those EPs is Age of Darkness, a crushing four-song slab of crusty death metal that comes out May 29 on Boris Records.
The crustiest song on the EP is “Titan Warlord,” a deliberately D-beat inspired tune that we’re sharing today in advance of Age of Darkness’s release. It’s as bludgeoning as it is groovy, and you can read a statement from the band on it below.
“When we set out to write the song ‘Titan Warlord’ our goal was to pay homage to U.K. and Scandinavian D-beat influences in a very obvious way. This style has been a large part of the Tombstalker sound since our inception and we wanted to really lean into this style heavily for this specific song. There are some other noticeable influences during the more crushing death metal sections that bring to mind acts such as Bolt Thrower and Sepultura as well. We also wanted to take the opportunity to show off more of what having a second guitar player in the band can do for us and the guitar solo trade-offs during the last segment of the song are a strong example of this. In short, this track is supposed to be a punk oriented boot to the face and is probably the heaviest one off the new EP.”
Pre-order Tombstalker’s Age of Darkness EP via Boris Records.