Album Review: Phrenelith – “Ashen Womb” (Death Metal)

Written by Kep

If you want to find an honest to goodness stronghold of quality death metal, look to Denmark. There you’ll find the likes of Undergang, Chaotian, Hyperdontia, Baest, and, of course, Phrenelith. The scene is damn near overflowing with great bands, and there’s so much talent banging around that the scene rarely produces anything less than stellar—see last year’s Septage, Undergang, and Hyperdontia releases for recent reference, or the Tetralogy of Death, Vol. 2 split if you’re feeling indecisive—and to the surprise of no one, this newest effort from Phrenelith is no exception to that trend. 

Their third LP following releases in 2017 and 2021, Ashen Womb is full of killer riffs, yes, but it also creates an impeccable atmosphere of stormy darkness and fire from moment one. There are blackened elements that blast across the skin like scorching wind out of a raging volcano, and the guitar material is highlighted by haunting turns of melodic material both morose and sinister. Some of the tracks connect seamlessly to one another, keeping the brimstone and ash falling thick between furnace blasts, and a mood-setting intro and interlude enhance that feeling of being caught in the whirling walls of a firestorm. Opener “Noemata” dishes out the first taste: a slow, ominous opening that builds to a roiling wall of burning distortion, riffs weaving in and out of the smoke. 

The guitar work is of course the most engaging part of Phrenelith’s songwriting: it’s often subtly melodic but with a wicked underpinning of dissonance, like if Hyperdontia and Immolation had a baby. It’s unrelenting stuff, tightly composed, oppressively dense, and destructive as a wind-driven inferno. It’s remarkably economical, too, weird as that may sound: “Astral Larvae”, for example, is centered around a falling set of intervals that the band stretches for maximum cohesiveness and mileage by rearranging their order and varying them slightly. The tempo shifts constantly, lurching forward and back over and over before a final headlong dive into the abyss. That’s the long and short of what makes Phrenelith so good: great riffs maximized, with just enough textural variety to perk your ears up for multiple reasons. The first passage in “Stagnated Blood” literally made me sit up straight in my chair and stare at the speakers; it’s epic, grandiose even, with a high distortion in the guitar tone that almost imitates backing synth. 

The album is positively bristling with great fucking stormy death metal riffs for days, but it’s way more than that. You’ll find moments of atmospheric wind and warmth, like at the beginning of “Nebulae”, that might make you think of Spectral Voice, and the disorienting blur of distortion, noise, flailing drums, and contorted guitar that is interlude “Sphageion” (perfectly placed as track seven of nine) might be the most effective piece of mood-building in a death metal album since Sparagmos last year. Bits of doom creep in as well, bolstering the ambiance and blackening, which make the closing 10-minute title track in particular feel monstrous. There are some damn groovy riffs to be found, too; check out the first moments of “Chrysopoeia” and try not to start bobbing your head. The band always makes sure to morph those groovier lines into something more hideous and intimidating, though, driving them mercilessly forward with fresh drum rhythms or distorting their intervals and sending them wailing into the aether. 

Everybody’s doing their part to make this a truly great record. The production and mix are outstanding: thick, filthy, and layered with ideal balance to let every element speak. The familiar voice at the center of Phrenelith’s sound is that of frontman David Torturdød, whose room-filling gutturals are necessarily gruffer here than in his work with Undergang (the intermingling of members seems to be particularly common among the most famous Danish death metal projects). He and lead guitarist Simon Daniel weave a preposterous number of vicious serpentine lines into every song, and bassist Jakob is a sturdy presence on the bottom end. Andreas Nordgreen’s turn behind the kit is a brazen and brutal one, and he adds some brilliant nuance: his choice to use bursts of double bass drum kicks rather than a constant running rhythm in the middle section of “Lithopaedion”, for example, is the kind of detail that elevates a track from great to amazing. Like the little cymbal flicks about seven minutes into the title track that decorate the riff juuust the right amount. And, you know, he also beats the fucking hell out of a snare. 

THE BOTTOM LINE

Phrenelith’s third full-length outing is the first real heavyweight death metal release of 2025, and it hits with every bit as much power as you’d expect. Danish death remains at the top of the genre, and Ashen Womb is the whirling firestorm to prove it.