VOMITORY - Redemption (FADELESS - CD 1999)
Quite often people say that in the mid to late
90’s / early 00’s death metal was really weak and there wasn’t really much
happening in this genre, except maybe few bigger bands that were releasing some
decent album. Well, in some point such talking is right – at that time black
metal really was in the centre of the attention of most people and death metal
was just lurking from its back, but that doesn’t mean that everything was going
on in this style of music from 1995 wasn’t interesting. There were still many
great bands, which were releasing some good albums… maybe the older, classic
bands such as Deicide, Unleashed or Grave were not able to match the quality of
their early materials and thus they’ve been releasing some dull records, but
some other bands really did hold the flag of death high. And maybe that was
even better if we had just a few really mind blowing death metal bands, instead
of hundreds, from which you don’t know what to pick up (like it happens
nowadays). When talking about the bands from this time I usually tend to
mention Fleshcrawl, Monstrosity, Immolation, Asphyx / Soulburn, God Dethroned, Dismember,
Malevolent Creation, Krisiun, Nile, but I often forget about the Swedish
masters of brutality – Vomitory. I don’t know why, anyway they for sure were
one of the better death metal bands in that time and their second LP
“Redemption” certainly was among my five best death metal albums released in
the late 90’s. Yeah, so good it is…
The recipe for “Redemption” was very simple, I
guess. First of all the proper production - it should be brutal, thick and damn
powerful, so every sound will be killer, loud and aggressive and everything
will be filled with energy able to devastate and turn everything into ruin. And
damn, for sure Vomitory did achieve it perfectly. In my opinion the production
of “Redemption” is awesome. To record everything at the Berno Studio for sure
was a good decision and as I said I like the sound of the album. It has
everything what I wrote above and nowadays it still sounds excellent and strong
as hell. Once I put the volume up I can just feel that sheer aggression and
powerful energy fills my apartment… walls crack and the ceiling falls apart…
And then there’re the songs… In original
version “Redemption” contains eight tracks, including God Macabre’s “Ashes of
Mourning Life” cover and well, they are all damn killer. They are very fast,
very uncompromising, brutal and powerful, sometimes they’re almost grinding
like crazy, but at the same time the material is varied, with plenty of slower
parts spread through the album and even some more melodic patterns used here
and there (but not over melodic, the album is extreme all the time!).
Vomitory’s death metal is also quite hmm “catchy”, if I can say so… not over
technical, but more straight forward, with memorable and impressive riffs,
without any twisted and too complex parts, as this is brutal death metal, not
maths lesson. And without bothering much about the originality Vomitory simply
composed strong and powerful death metal songs and they succeeded; “Redemption”
surely was one of the best death metal records of the late 90’s. But just
listen to how this albums starts; first few songs are total blasting extreme
motherfuckers: “The Voyage”, then the grinding “Forever in Gloom”… Finally
“Heaps of Blood” will stop that madness a little bit, with some more midpaced
tempos and groovy, almost melodic riffing and that is also continued with
“Embraced by Pain”. And that’s good, if the speed is not something what the
band concentrates on fully, but also cares about the songwriting and diversity.
So, “Redemption” is a great achievement from Vomitory; even 14 years since its
recordings it still sounds brutal and crushes the bones, so I have nothing more
to desire.
There are two versions of “Redemption” and I
must admit that personally I picked up the one released by Fadeless Records, as
this CD contains some nice bonus tracks from Vomitory’s long sold out
anniversary picture LP (released in 667 copies by Fadeless in 1999). So, we get
five bonus songs from it – with three Vomitory’s tracks and two cover tunes:
Napalm Death’s “Extremity Retained” and Sodom’s “Christ Passion”. More so, the
booklet is filled with some archival band photos and some liner notes, so this
CD version is really nice to have. Remember then… Death metal forever!
Standout tracks: “The Voyage”, “Forever in
Gloom”, “Redemption”
Final rate: 85/100
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