RSS Feed


VERMINOTH
Grotesque Manifestation EP

Grand Vomit Productions (2023)
Rating: 6/10

Two years after their 2021 debut full-length outing Primordial Tomb, Pennsylvanian death metallers Verminoth return with one of the year’s best album covers; a sickly pea-soup fog that conceals hideous leering entities and provides the perfect accompaniment to a soundtrack of squelching, burping morbidity.

Admittedly the sways towards a slam mind-set would normally put me off, but there is a rancid and rank joy to the gurgled vocal bellows and that groove-based percussion. With a cover like that I did expect a sound daubed in much more atmosphere than what it actually offers, but there are still plenty of squalid moments to devour as the five-piece revels in its adoration of old school death metal channelled via chunky riffs.

Tracks such as the grinding ‘Malignant Gestation’ offer enough sludge-packed hammering and growling to please anyone with a penchant for catchy brutality, while elsewhere the title cut offers that steady, rhythmic pus-filled pulsation in its drums and guitar which work well in tandem with the rumbling bass and chesty vocals.

Verminoth take occasional trips into hardcore territory too and so the bubbling cauldron of sounds they offer has a sense of eeriness alongside its catchiness, but it doesn’t come anywhere near the gore-soaked brilliance of acts such as Fetid and Cerebral Rot.

Boasting four tracks, Grotesque Manifestation is a solid and often satisfying death metal offering, but in a field jam-packed with so many macabre acts I’m not sure it does enough to stay in the stereo for very long, which is a shame because that cover art really suggests something swampy and sick.

Neil Arnold

<< Back to Album & EP Reviews



Related Posts via Categories
Share