AUTUMN TOMB, a new doom metal trio featuring Steve Moore of ZOMBI alongside bassist Bryan Richie and drummer Santiago "Jimmy" Vela of THE SWORD, will release its self-titled debut album on November 6 via Spaceflight Records. The first taste is "Crumbling Thrones", a crusher that runs just shy of ten minutes.
The two camps got to know each other in 2022, when ZOMBI supported THE SWORD on a West Coast run and Moore regularly joined the headliners for an encore of Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley". That cover later landed on THE SWORD's vinyl-only EP Conquest Of Quarantine (2023), and Moore and Richie had already crossed paths on ZOMBI's Zombi & Friends, Vol. 1.
Moore came up with the idea for AUTUMN TOMB in 2024, wanting something darker and heavier than his usual work. In the new band he handles guitar, vocals, lyrics and synths, steering the material toward slow, detuned doom and sludge with a layer of dark synth ambience on top. He says he has been a metal fan since the late '80s, and that touring with THE SWORD and then OM in 2022 rekindled his love of heavy music.
Vela, who has known Richie since their teens in the Austin scene and has played beside him in THE SWORD since 2011, called the offer "a no-brainer". Richie said he was hooked from the first note of Moore's demos.
The album was recorded at Moore's Nightmare City in Albany, New York, and engineered by Richie at Paper Weapons Studio in Taylor, Texas, with additional engineering by Phil Manley at Hummingbird Studio in Oakland. It holds five long tracks: side A carries "Ages Lost", "Miracles Of Pain" and "Golgatha" (the shortest at 5:44), while side B pairs the 7:41 "Eternal Sea" with "Crumbling Thrones".
Autumn Tomb is pressed in an edition of 500 copies on 180-gram vinyl across three variants, plus 100 cassettes, and will also be on all streaming services.
Moore's résumé goes well beyond ZOMBI, whose latest album Direct Inject came out on Relapse in 2024: he toured North America as keyboardist for GOBLIN in 2013 and 2014 and recorded with GHOST on Prequelle. THE SWORD, meanwhile, are about to head out on a U.S. tour with CORROSION OF CONFORMITY in November.