VOMITORY - ALL HEADS ARE GONNA ROLL

BALLISTIC, UNADULTERATED FIRST-GEN DEATH METAL

Aside from a massive decade-long hiatus Vomitory have been on the go for decades, regurgitating all the best bits of old school US and Scandinavian death metal of the early 1990s. The indefatigable veteran Swedes haven’t released an album since before they disbanded in 2013 but gnarly old DM acts creaking out of semi-retirement has been something of a trend recently so if you are going to do it, then it might as well be with a favourable tide.

And if, moreover, you are going to do it then you might as well make it worth the effort and, mercifully, it behoves us to report that All Heads Are Gonna Roll is ballistic, unadulterated first-generation death metal that puts to shame many acts half this band’s age. There are no intros of frills just unequivocal nasty viciousness from the first beat. Put plainly, the first five songs are mentally brutal, possessed OSDM played at is optimum. The opening title track and its follower, Decrowned and The Deepest Tomb are just barnstorming with frantic buzzsaw fretwork and machine gun blastbeats. If that isn’t descriptive enough, the sound has the high-tempo exactitude executed with a blurry bludgeon that is reminiscent of perhaps Vader. But each listen conjures up soupcons of any number of early Scandinavian or US DM influences.

It is profoundly unsubtle music but actually has some memorable head banging moments and one of the best tracks here also has the most ill-advised title (Raped, Strangled, Sodomized, Dead – even by death metal standards, come on…). There are also some violent beer-breathed D Beat driven punky chords peppered here and there as well as some slower, grindier pummelling (Beg For Death) and haywire whinnying Slayer solos in the likes of Disciplines of the Damned. The album drags ever so slightly in the second half as the sheer velocity and wrath is always difficult to sustain; but the record is kept to a condensed run-time which is sensible for blunt force trauma style delivery of this sort. Generally, Vomitory have one gear which is always too fast, and one approach which is too brutal. Triumphantly unoriginal and gloriously balls to the wall, Vomitory play with such guts and attitude its like death metal is new.

All Heads are Gonna Roll is released via Metal Blade Records