AN NCS PREMIERE: VOMITHEIST — “TORMENTING FUNGAL INFESTATION”

Let’s be clear: We have no private info about why a trio of Swiss musical collaborators chose Vomitheist for their name. Mainly, all we have to go on is the name itself and a rudimentary understanding of words. The name looks like a conjunction of “vomit” and “theist”, which suggests that vomit is their god. Which raises the question, what does the worship of vomit sound like? We’ll come back to that.

We say that linguistic analysis is “mainly” what we have to go on, but there’s a bit more, before we get to the music itself. There’s the name of their new album – NekroFvneral – and song titles such as “Putrefaktor”, “Symbiotic Putrefaction”, “Chapel of Abhorrent Reek and Festering Slime” (in case you’re wondering where the worship of vomit takes place), and “Epidemic Disembowelment” (which sounds like a pithy summing up of what a few years of life under covid was like).

All of this points the way to a death metal band who kneel at the altar of disgusting musical extremity, with no pretenses to any higher calling and no problem joining a long lineage of other DM bands who have made their “ethos” out of steaming piles of the nastiest stuff the human body is capable of producing, in life or in death. The kind of extreme metal themes that might be the hardest to explain to the kind of people whose listening choices get nominated for Grammy awards.

So now you’re already pretty well-prepared for what you’re about to hear. You probably already can guess whether Vomitheist are going to be in your personal wheelhouse. But even if you have a taste for the most foul and regurgitative death metal, maybe it’s a refined taste. Maybe you know that there are gradations of quality in this kind of thing (and there most certainly are), so you still insist on getting some filthy tastes before taking the plunge on NekroFvneral. We’re here to help.

“Epidemic Disembowelment” isn’t the only song whose title might make you think of timely relevant topics. The one we’re premiering today, “Tormenting Fungal Infestation“, is another, mainly because of the immense popularity of The Last of Us. Though we’re not suggesting that the streaming series had anything to do with Vomitheist‘s own conception for the song, the track does generate similarly horrifying visions.

Anchored by a beat somewhere between a stomp and a lurch, the guitars hammer and quiver with a nasty HM-2-type tone, but we’re talking about an infestation here, and so the band dutifully accelerate, drums pummeling and the riffage transforming into a frenzy. Back and forth they go, staggering and racing, unspooling weird and malignant leads, gravel-chewing bass-lines, and gruesome growls as ugly as original sin.

Those quivering leads seem like an unhealthy pulse, both ecstatic and sick at the same time, but they do get stuck in the head, like a mental infestation. Well, the grooves get stuck there too, and one can imagine insanity igniting in mosh pits when the band throw themselves into violent seizures of sound. You’ll also encounter a strangely skipping drum pattern and piston-like chugs made for head-bobbing.

Yes, it’s foul, and ferocious, and — like the title portends — damned infectious.

Perhaps you now want more tastes, because even your tastes in musical vomit are refined? We can help (again), because there are two more nastily named tracks from NekroFvneral out in the world. Like the song we’ve just premiered, both of them are dynamic affairs and both are fiendishly catchy.

There’s the adrenaline-fueled, pulse-pounding circle-pit cataclysm of “Strangled By Entrails” and there’s “Morbid Decomposition“, which is part asylum-strength lunacy and part neck-wrecking crushfest in variable speeds (and maybe the most infectious of all 3 of the songs you’ll find here today).

Well, you can tell we’ve had some fun writing up this music. But seriously, although you’ll draw your own conclusions, we think Vomitheist are exceptionally good songwriters for this kind of festering death metal. As their label rightly proclaims, on this debut full-length “they have nailed it all – substance, sound, aesthetics – and delivered the complete package”, and have done so with a nice balance between distorted crunchiness and enough clarity to allow for each instrumental contribution (and those disgusting vocals) to be deciphered.

The label is Transcending Obscurity Records, and they’ll release NekroFvneral on May 19th, on CD and digital formats, with lots of apparel options and other merch (LP and cassette tape editions will be announced later). All of the options feature the cover art of Aesthetik Art. It comes recommended for fans of: Crawl, Feral, Dismember, Black Breath, Grave, Carnage, Autopsy, Abscess, and Bloodbath.

PRE-ORDER:
Bandcamp: https://vomitheistdm.bandcamp.com/
US Store: https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
EY Stire: https://transcendingobscurity.8merch.com/

VOMITHEIST:
https://www.facebook.com/Vomitheist