Five albums in, I think it’s safe to make some general
statements on the career of the band. Vomitory plays death metal. Vomitory
plays death metal very, very well. They have the brutality of the American scene
and the melody and guitar work of their native Sweden. Lyrically, they cover a
lot of the standard death metal bases of gore, violence and murder, and killing
and demons, and war, not content to stick to one content approach like many
other bands do. Truly, Vomitory is a smorgasbord of death metal, with something
for everyone because everyone likes something.
Coming in to Terrorize
Brutalize Sodomize the band was on something of a hot streak, with the
previous three albums all being very strong death metal experiences, and all
three of them having a stable vocalist after having different ones on each of
their first three albums. The band wasn’t really going through any sort of
identify crisis or anything, seemingly having arrived on the scene fully formed
and possessed of their artistic vision. Rather than need time and records to
find their voice, Vomitory showed up growling and spitting and killing, and
apparently never found much of a need to reevaluate or rethink their approach.
Even the single outlier of an album, 1999’s Redemption,
was not an alteration or departure from the Vomitory sound, and so to list
consistency as a strength of the band would be totally accurate.
The biggest difference of this record is opening hot and
never relenting as opposed to taking the traditional Vomitory approach of
needing two songs to get itself going. Opener “Eternal Trail of Corpses” and
the title track in the third position do a great job of setting the tempo right
away, while fourth track “The Burning Black” slows things down and is possibly
the standout track of the album. “Whispers of the Dead” would probably be the
closest contender for that honor, containing a pretty interesting chorus. “Flesh
Passion” is a really good deep cut. The rest of the album does blend together a
little bit, and while that is usually a bad thing, Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize at least keeps it interesting and
entertaining enough that I don’t want to check out of the experience. This is apparently the album where other people start checking out, giving Vomitory that horrible label of "Band that always does the same thing," and this is the point at which it becomes stale for a lot of them. I don't think so. This album is fun and engaging right away; from the first notes I was jamming along in the car, really enjoying the experience. All songs
here are catchy and solid. I was into this album right from the get go, much
like the previous two, and I think that the Blood
Rapture, Primal Massacre, Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize sequence may be the
best part of the bands’ eight record run.
Again, five albums in, certain blanket statements can be
made on a band like this that isn’t trying new things with each successive
album. Vomitory lived and died as a band without much acclaim or recognition,
and it’s not easy to understand why. This was a solid band that turned out album
after album of respectable, listenable and exciting death metal music. One of
the biggest sins this kind of music can commit is that it is boring, and
Vomitory is never boring. Bands with similar career trajectories are far more
known than this one: bands like Bolt Thrower, Deicide and Cannibal Corpse, all
excellent death metal bands, among others have made careers of writing the same
record again and again, and are some of the most well-known bands in the genre.
While those bands are not without their detractors, they have amassed legions
of fans because of their stability and reliability from album to album. So why
not Vomitory? If there was ever a Swedish death metal band that could have made
it with the more brutal American death metal audience, it would have been them.
For reasons unknown, they just never did, which is a shame. This is the kind of
band that every metal fan should have in their repertoire: the old faithful,
the old reliable. The guys that never reinvent the wheel, but never let you down
either.
But there is probably the biggest issue for Vomitory. As
steady and consistent as they are, they lack those more memorable elements of
those other bands. As catchy as their riffs may be, I don’t find any of them
getting caught in my head the way a Deicide or Bolt Thrower or Corpse song
does. With every listen to an album, I recognize songs right away, and they are
memorable for the duration of the listening; but then, when the record stops,
I’m left with memories of a satisfying experience but little else. They just
lack that “It” thing that it takes to break into that upper strata of death
metal bands.
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