Eight years after the release of their debut album, Visceral Disgorge are back with their follow-up full-length “Slithering Evisceration“. 8 years?! That’s a hell of a spell between albums guys. Given the promo material says their first album is “now considered by many as a death metal classic”, why didn’t record company executives crawl up their rectums and apply pressure to their prostates to release an album sooner? This had better not be one of those Dimmu Borgir or Dark Funeral ‘massive break between releases’ situations where they come back with an average as fuck album.
To be Brutally (Death Metally) honest, the Intro ‘Slithering Eviseration‘ is 94 seconds of nothing. It’s some power chords and a bit of palm-muted chuggery. Thankfully, it’s short.
Luckily, the next track (which is clearly a love song with a title like “Fucked into Oblivion“) starts crawling up your rectum to rip your prostate out, unlike some record company executives who shall remain nameless. There is no doubt these guys can play. The riffs and guitars sound great, as do the songs. The drummer is an octopus. But, Visceral Disgorge are a Brutal Death Metal band, so don’t come here expecting anything ground-breaking. You’re going to get dropped tunings, and a lot of palm-muting and pinch harmonics, all of which is fine. I guess my problem is that there are so many Brutal Death Metal bands around these days that you could slap another band’s name on this album and I’d believe it wasn’t Visceral Disgorge. It’s much like what they’ve done to potato chips. They release all these new and bizarre flavours and they all just end up tasting the same.
This brings me to the vocals, which are one-dimensional and my least favourite part of the album. At times, they are quite low in the mix and, on a few occasions, get lost beneath the guitars. But, I thought they were a little low in the mix on their last album too, so maybe that’s their trademark. Anyway, relative to their last album, the vocals are weaker. The gutturals are not as deep in the gutter. The band seem to have tried to mask the vocalist’s inability to get gravel into his voice by compressing the bandwidth such that it sounds like he’s singing over the radio.
It might seem like I don’t like this album, but I do. As I said, the drumming, riffs, and songwriting are very good. It’s not perfect, but it is a very good album.
Rating – 4/5
Be eviscerated right here.
https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/slithering-evisceration
The Metal Wanderlust 