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Vomitory: Redemption
29/10/10 || Habakuk
Hello, this is Global Domination. If you’re here (and I know you are) you probably know about Vomitory. Their forum’s hosted here after all, and the site itself is run by their biggest fan, apparently. And still, no-one talks about “Redemption”, their sophomore release, let alone review it. Why, you ask, and I reply with a puzzled “shrug”. Vomitory put this one out in 1999 and delivered the goods, old school style. They did change their business to delivering a slightly different set of goods after this album, but that doesn’t make “Redemption” any worse.
Other than on some later releases, the sawing guitars are nested in a considerably fuller, warmer sound and the drums’ pulsating d-beats extravaganza profits from an organic overall tone. Result: this album doesn’t come readily polished, and it doesn’t sound like recorded in an emergency room, but it sounds lively and energetic. Some might call it a “sloppier” sound, but that would lead unsuspecting readers astray – the playing is ace, and the production is not lo-fi, like, say, XANhtahGNnasdU (US)‘s – “Fvrest ov der Swastika” album. Check them out, they’re not Nazis, I promise. Don’t you know it’s like an old heathen symbol invented by Tolkien, you ignorant. You probably haven’t even watched “Lord of the Rings”. My favorite bit is where they hug.
Real life matters aside, we’ll simply state that “Redemption” possesses an old school sound. It rumbles, it crashes, it grooves, it makes me a happy Haba. Alone a good album that does not make, however. Hence, in a stroke of genius, Vomitory brought songwriting to the table. By that, they elevate the album over the flat amateurish drag of what I’ve heard off their first album. They use skilled ways of incorporating half-time breakdowns, slower bits, interesting riff structures alongside simpler blast- or d-beat driven material, and the result is a nice mix of crushing grooves and high speed DESS on err… drugs that punks use. The result is a nice mix of crushing grooves and high speed death on cheap beer.
And while they certainly upped the ante in the high speed department on later albums from “Revelation Nausea” to “Primal massacre”, that cheap beer flavor went missing more and more. Call me a nostalgist, but that is the part the puts “Redemption” on par with those albums, no matter how much more evolved and elaborate they are. It took “Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize” to bring it all together, and if you ever wondered where its punk borrowings originated, check out “Redemption”, an underrated and overlooked death metal gem with a couple of rough edges.
- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Fadeless Records (2003 re-release)
- Website: www.vomitory.net
- Band
- Jussi Linna: vocals
- Ulf Dalegren: guitars
- Urban Gustafsson: guitars
- Erik Rundqvist: bass
- Tobias Gustafsson: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. The voyage
- 02. Forty seconds bloodbath
- 03. Forever in gloom
- 04. Heaps of blood
- 05. Embraced by pain
- 06. Redemption
- 07. Ashes of mourning life
- 08. Partly dead
- 09. The art of war
- 10. Undivulged
- 11. Extremity retained (Napalm Death)
- 12. Dead cold
- 13. Christ passion (Sodom)
