VOMITORY - Opus Mortis VIII
May 18, 2011, 13 years ago
(Metal Blade)
Yes, it’s album number eight (!) for this gang of Swedish deathsters. And right off the bat, I like the oddball production, the snare actually sounding like a snare, sonics clashing together, meshing now and again, cool barbed-wire death riffs grazing Floridian swamp deathchug halftime stomps. So, yes indeedy, this is death metal: there is absolutely nothing new under VOMITORY’s sun, but do you want there to be? No. “They Will Burn” is the best CANNIBAL CORPSE song so far this year, the guitar solo in “Forever Damned” starts the millisecond the song itself starts (which rules), there’s some SLAYER riffing spicing up the album (like, for example, the album’s very last riff, which is a tasty way to end it), and ditties like “Hate in a Time of War” blast admirably, capably, and ass-kickingly, perhaps not mind-bendingly or even, uh, note-worthingly, but definitely in the upper tier of straight-ahead modern-day death. A solid 7.5, and an extra half-point goes to the boys for the natural, raw production.
