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Voorhees > Chapter Two > Reviews
Voorhees - Chapter Two

Jason Mother Is Talking To You! - 75%

Sweetie, April 17th, 2020

Going into a band by the name Voorhees, I was pretty much certain I’d find some hokey, gimmicky form of trashy horror fun. Weirdly enough, that was very much, not the case. Instead, this is a French death metal act that focuses on solid chops and songwriting heavily based on the concept of killers in general. That should have been rather obvious, but I actually think Chapter Two, their first full-length, is very musically mature. The Chapter 1 EP came out in 2017 around the band’s formation, and this was a solid stab at solidifying those ideas.

Grainy tonality that bears a slight sweep of polishing is going to jump out at you right away, heavily reflecting the Swedish style bands. The riffing offers a variety of fast blasts, sweeping waves, and slow-burning. “Evil To Come” takes its time to sink in, building its entire foundation on crawling rhythms backed by strong bass flavoring. It then collapses into blast beats and buzzsaw-speeds with throaty growls on top. The vocals, in general, are hit or miss, depending where you are. Sometimes they have lots of bite, other times they’re somewhat sloppy.

Album opener “The Lucky Ones Die First” is way more to-the-point, dropping hard hits that stay close to the traditional style. Chapter Two tends to let the better songs take over when they don’t go too hard with trying to be more involved. “The Will To Kill” cracks into some bouncy rhythms with reverberating trails to the riffing, being one of the best songs on this. Tracks like that also allow a bit of melody to sneak in, which is always a nice breather. Different styles of vocals on “Voorhees II” bring on plenty of melo-deathisms, which is neat in doses. That one is easily the most accessible song on the disc, and the solo at the end is super beefy.

By the back of this, I will admit that things start to feel a bit tired, but that’s because of how it’s primarily composed of slightly longer songs, and the mix can feel overwhelming here and there. But considering what I was expecting, Voorhees have a decent ear for hooks and solid songwriting. It should be obvious that fans of death metal and horror films give this at least one spin.

Originally written for Indy Metal Vault

Voorhees - Chapter Two - 93%

Edmund Sackbauer, April 9th, 2020
Written based on this version: 2020, CD, Great Dane Records (Digipak)

The French horror fans and old school death metal maniacs Voorhees are back with their full length debut titled “Chapter Two”. Having introduced themselves to the scene with their self-released first EP “Chapter One” they have now teamed up with one of the finest French labels when it comes to death metal, namely Great Dane Records. While the EP showed a lot of promise and provided for a fun and straight-forward listen things have got more serious and beefy, with improvements to be shown on all accounts.

Voorhees have not drastically changed their formula of mixing US styled death with some influences from European bands like Sinister, Bolt Thrower or certain Swedish acts. The basic riffs are often fast and aggressive, but sometimes also slow and stoic. The chords have a pretty simple and straight-forward feel to them most of the time, but there are some cleverly implemented variations of the main themes. The lead guitar parts create a lot of atmosphere acting in the background for the most part, delivering gloomy and sometimes more uplifting harmonies. Of course there are some traditional soloing parts, but those are kept compact so that they never distract from the track itself.

The drumming is tight and on point. Most of the time the man behind the kit acts in mid-tempo mode, adding a few well-timed fills and blasts, but he mainly concentrates on providing a rolling and groovy platform for the main chords. There are a bunch of sections where the tempo is completely slowed down and the music crawls out of the speakers like an undead corpse. Those parts constitute some of the highlights, providing a similar dark and oppressive vibe that can be found on several Aspyhx or Grave albums. Overall these guys really know how to write a hooky and highly enjoyable death metal song. In comparison to their EP they do not shy away from implementing a few more variations within their song structures, and also some very atmospheric parts.

Singer Chris has a very deep and powerful voice. His growls are delivered in convincing and powerful fashion and while he belts out the lyrics with brutality and anger each word can be perfectly understood. The production is raw and filthy, but very dynamic and powerful at the same time. Dan Swanö has delivered a nice job here once again. He managed to give the record a punchy and diversified, yet rough and organic sound. In the end your enjoyment of “Chapter Two” will depend on if you a) can live with music that has no whatsoever intent to completely reinvent the wheel and b) like your death metal pure and straight to the point. In case you answer both questions with “yes” you should put this album on your to-buy list.