Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave

Obviously, you can never please everyone, whether it's about your personal beliefs or your professional practices, but if you really want to get into a catch-22, try playing modern old school death metal. See, that stuff is so focused on authenticity that it has to walk this precarious tightrope between capturing the grotesque spirit of its forefathers and not being a ripoff, and paradoxically the more it succeeds at finding that balance the more its act gets ignored or misconstrued; it's like people only ever do two things with these modern death metal bands, label them as boring and unoriginal or praise them to high heavens for being original when they're really not. But where's that sweet, morbid middle-ground that just is what it is and is so good at being what it is that it just plain fucking rules?

Well, if you're one of those people who, in the words of some basement-dwelling nutcase who happens to be the voice of American doom metal, "don't go floatin' for no 20 buck spin", then you're not gonna find it, because in 2019, 20 Buck Spin absolutely killed it just like Dark Descent and Profound Lore had been doing in the years prior, with bands like Cerebral Rot, Fetid, Tomb Mold, Vastum, Superstition, and Witch Vomit. While I anticipated the new albums and/or debuts from the former bands, the latter slithered its way onto my radar ever so disgustingly. Odd, as Witch Vomit had been prolific before this sophomore effort of theirs, releasing material on one of the intermediate-sized but still considerable labels in the game, Memento Mori. All the same, Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave is a vile introduction to them and their most mature material yet.

I think this album has a lot of mood, especially for how short it is, from the subtle yet repulsive intro to "From Rotten Guts" to the final maniacal hack 'n' slash of "Fumes of Dying Bodies." It's divided up nicely into suites of tracks like a serial killer's latest surgically dismembered victim, as the first two tracks really create a brilliant bridge into the mostly instrumental title track, especially with the unnerving yet absurd sample at the end of "Despoilment." Still though, every song is very distinct, and the two cuts after the title track, which themselves precede a solid instrumental, are sequenced such that they make the album feel longer than it actually is, but in the sense of completeness, not tediousness. One factor that helps is the fact that Witch Vomit simply doesn't milk any one riff too much, they use the catchier riffs in conjunction with the chaotic tremolo ones, such as in the middle of "Dead Veins", a song which then wisely ends with more ominous, doomy progressions.

And oh boy, do I have to talk about this album's tremolo barrage, because it's fucking sick. Listening to some of these riffs actively feels like getting disemboweled with an egg-beater, your intestines reduced to a frothy pulp. Really, a lot of the Incantation-reminiscent death metal uses tremolo riffs that sound more like uncontrollable flames consuming all in their path as the debris from the hellstorms of unleashed doom prophecies eviscerates weak mortal flesh, no small task to be sure (Incantation's own "Impending Diabolical Conquest" is a great example of this musical imagery with its riff after the first verse), but Witch Vomit's riff arsenal is more what I imagine it would sound like if Autopsy played more tremolo riffs. Accomplishing this sound also has something to do with the bass, for as serpentine and gnarly as the guitar tone is (aided by the winding structure of the riffs), it wouldn't feel like it has the power to masticate chunks of flesh without that battering low-end. The vocals, also, are as guttural as you'd desire from this fare, but they're actually far closer to the camp of Vomitory (Revelation Nausea and onwards) than they are to Autopsy or Incantation. "Vomit" bands gotta stick together I suppose, but really, as a side note, how underrated are those Swedes for influencing this kind of death metal? I mean forget that they're literally Cannibal Corpse + Bloodbath except a million times better than both, they just had a very clear impact on bands from Witch Vomit to Carnal Tomb. Anyway...

Yeah, Buried Deep is a really solid death metal album, and I really love that it's under 28 minutes. Such a short album never felt so complete, and for that alone it gets a high score. This stuff is somehow fun and oppressive at the same time, and that's one reason it's stuck with me, in addition to its authentic feel. I also like how Metal Archives lists "Depression" as one of the lyrical themes for Witch Vomit, as I can certainly confirm this is the case from perusing the pamphlet of my digipak copy, but not literally so. Their lyrics seem to communicate a sense of despair more in how they convey the typically deathly themes of their genre, like in "Dead Veins", and yet they're not above throwing in some sarcastic growl-chuckles. Thematically, I think that sums up what Witch Vomit are out to do, because their music combines the darkness of Mortal Throne of Nazarene with the wild badassery of Slaughtercult, making them all around a neat band to check out.