Some Death Metal albums impress you with how technical they are, and others just make you pull that stank face when a riff hits. ‘Malignity’ manages to do both.
There are some seriously disgusting riffs on this thing. Every time it seems like Vile Apparition is moving into more technical parts, they come right back to a more chunky approach and get your head moving again. Some of those riffs just screamed Dying Fetus at me in a great way. Not the sound of the entire album, but the way they managed to combine technical guitar wizardry with just plain gross grooves.
And honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like the bass as much as I did. You get those fat, open sound that seems to be everywhere in ’90s Death Metal, where you can actually hear the bass moving underneath the guitar instead of being buried in the mix. Little things like that give ‘Malignity’ an older feel even when the playing gets more complex.
Honestly, the best thing I can say about ‘Malignity’ is that when it ended, I wanted to start it over. There were enough riffs where I caught myself thinking, “I need to hear that again”, and that’s usually a pretty good sign an album has done its job.
