The new Witch Vomit album marks a slight stylistic shift. Most of you know them as a straight-forward Death Metal band influenced by both the Swedish and American scene, and give it a dark atmosphere. On ‘Funeral Sanctum’ there is far more melody present. It is still old school, it still has brutality in it, still has morbidity but melody made its entrance on this one.
Don’t expect something as melodic as Dark Tranquillity’s ‘The Gallery,’ but consider Avulsed’s more Swedish tracks on ‘Stabwound Orgasm’ as a reference point. Without doubt a good album but check it out first if you are devotee of Witch Vomit’s earlier work. (Ricardo)
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Brought forth by the maleficent winds of an ancient Oregon cemetery, Witch Vomit bring the soiled graveyard dirt and a pummeling agenda that’s buckling under the horrible velocity of Death Metal valor.
No album in recent memory has enthralled my intrepid mind such as this. A sanctimonious oeuvre of sinisterly serrating riffs, pretty yet ominously transfixing interludes, barbarically feral drums and deep, brutish vocal bellows, sounding as if summoned from the hollows of hell. Interlude ‘Dying Embers’ lurches forth ominously, a harbinger of the fate that awaits. Launching headlong into ‘Endless Fall’ a song which contains a decidedly frigid aura and rabid duel guitar propositions from Tempter and CL. ‘Blood Of Abomination’ sprints into killing mode with an abrupt eruption by drummer Filth and proceeds to lay waste to all and sundry. Fortified with D- beat beatings and a frenzied Slayer-esque momentum, this track is as catchy as the bubonic plague of the Middle ages. Certainly though, the contender for most “commercially” viable (de)composition is ‘Serpentine Shadows’, and like it’s title’s namesake it slithers through your subconscious, hissing and reminiscing about shining bodies dancing in exhultation upon the ancient hills where corpses lay. Bassist JG’s finger flagellations are optimally frenzied during the briskly paced mid section. But, amongst all of the unhinged buffeting on offer we are treated to a phantasmagorical respite in the form of ‘Abject Silence’ a beauteous segue which brings to mind the besotted dead, lying still in peaceful bliss. Title track ‘Funeral Sanctum’ serves as the ultimate denouement. Harsh, sordid, bereaved and morally bankrupt.
The perfect end for a colossal tour de force. Fiends of Dissection (‘Storm Of The Ligh’ts Bane’) and Possessed (‘Beyond The Gates’) will assuredly devour the vermin of this magnum opus! (Tony F. Corpse)
