Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave

Here I review the brand new (at the time of writing) full length from one of death metal’s filthiest bands, Witch Vomit!

The record opens with a quick blast of sci-fi synth before rupturing riffs and a vomited growl over blasting drum ferocity kicks in the meaty macabre death-fest. The churning grooves of the instruments hurls up a cacophony of putrid soundscapes with that truly epic take on old school death metal that so many bands are offering up slab after slab of. Witch Vomit truly nail the odious nuances of the music with catchy hooks and a truly masterful range of vocal haunts. The screaming whammy bar solos complete the fetid sound within the first track, produced in a murky and dissonant manner that retains full clarity. The band do use the occasionally somewhat progressive riff to throw in some volatility while keeping the meandering onslaught the main focus. A blisteringly searing blend of crushing brutality and utterly menacing ferocity drives this short album through track after track of snarling doomy ugliness so fantastically. Further dissonance is blended in temporarily through the impaling grooves with a torturously heavy assault of intimidation hitting hard from start to end.

The slower sections give a truly cavernous sound and are transcendent in their flow with the full-throttle blasting barrages, some absolutely phenomenal songwriting and structuring is to be found throughout that keeps the inferno of death exciting and unpredictable. I adored the cosmic sampling used beautifully at the end of the second track and the interluding sections throughout were really wicked. For me this endless swaying groove of truly disgusting death metal is what I adore about many 20 Buck Spin artists, these guys making a fine new addition to their 2019 catalogue with meaty riff savagery, drum pounding butchery and hellishly morbid vocals. I loved the diversity from mournfully doomy tracks like “Dead Veins” to the more devastating blasters like its follow-up “Dripping Tombs, such wonderful variety in a short release is to be marvelled at. The album also ends on a brutally ripping high with “Fumes Of Dying Bodies” which is an appropriately ferocious ending to things, vomiting out one last memorable slice of true death ,etal madness.

This record will have you headbanging along with ease but also demand your respect and attention to the atmospheric detailing so beautifully crafted. For me, this is a huge step up from Witch Vomit as much as I love their previous material, expect astounding things from this band.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com

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.

20 Buck Spin offers so many good metal bands. Witch Vomit has never been on my radar, but I heard people saying how good this album was. I checked it out and before I knew it the album was over. This only clocks in around 27 minutes and is some of the filthiest and disgusting death metal to come out this year.

This is a pretty solid record. The vocals by Tony Thomas are fucking legit. He draws out his lyrics, making one syllable words seem a lot longer than they are. It really adds a layer of filth to the instrumentals that are tuned down and dirty sounding as fuck. If you want to know what an album will sound like before listening to it, then just look at the artwork. The songs sound as the cover art looks. Each song adds more and more atmosphere and makes you feel like you're walking through hell.

The title track is probably my favorite on here. The sound is so blistering and the vocals don't kick in until 40 seconds left of the song. The way each song builds itself up is super impressive. That goes for most of the record and for five songs it's a real treat. However, on the instrumental tune, "Squirming in Misery", it can get a little repetitious. There isn't much going on in three minutes. You'd think with no vocals that these guys would absolutely kill it on a track like this. Instead, they choose to just pummel out three minutes of no-nonsense death metal and groove.

Everyone probably thinks of a different band, or bands, when thinking about the term "death metal". Witch Vomit may be up there for me. The atmosphere on this album is what death metal is all about. It's not a perfect album by any means. It could be longer and filled with a little bit more variety. I could see myself not listening to this album as much as some other releases this year. The six songs go by really quick. As a no bullshit death metal release though, it ticks every box.

Recs: "Despoilment", "Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave", and "Dripping Tombs"

Nowadays when new death metal bands either play tech-wank or they play Incantation worshipping death/doom, we tend to get a lot of great albums (mostly from the 2nd category). Take Carnal Tomb, Pissgrave or even Gorephilia for example. All of these bands are making top quality death metal, but the fans of this style can only handle so much bands and I think we are getting to the point where we are getting a bit flooded with these bands and this leads to them getting forgotten in a year. How is this connected to Witch Vomit? Well, you may have already guessed it, they play caveman death metal and most likely nobody will remember them in a year or so.

All that being said, the album is great. The first song starts off with a short sample which quickly turns into a crushing riff. Crushing and suffocating is probably the best way to describe the riffs on the album. The low guitars sound exactly like you would hope: filthy and disgusting. The vocals are also something to behold. The guttural vocals are (as expected) so low that I felt like it's coming from a... well... Bottomless Grave. The mixing of the album is also something that impressed me. Almost everything is in the right place, sounding just like they meant to be. We even get some erupting guitar solos every once in a while.

It would be foolish to talk about each track individually because most of them have the same traits, but there are a couple of stand-out ones. The instrumental track Squirming in Misery, for example, has a really great atmosphere thanks to the riffs and the wonderful songwriting. Despoilment has probably the grooviest and nastiest riff out of them all (no wonder it's my favorite track). It reminds me of Immolation which is one hell of a compliment.

Even though the band executes the formula pretty nicely, there are still some issues. I would have liked to hear something new, something that stands out and makes the songs sound nothing like other bands with the same style, but in the end, all we get is a solid record with nothing that hasn't been done yet. I also miss the bass out of this record since it's barely audible. Not a huge problem, but it is still somewhat annoying. One last thing that kept bugging me is the samples they used. They are more annoying than atmospheric.

Overall while this record is definitely worth your time and money, the lack of originality will probably get this album in the bag of "great death metal albums that nobody remembers at all", but then again, it succeeds at what they were aiming for.

The highlights of the album are Despoilment, Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave and Dripping Tombs.

Witch Vomit have had major hype in the new trend of death metal throwback bands and for the most part it's rightfully deserved, however in the current death metal old school revival landscape with bands like Tomb Mold, Blood Incantation, etc. Witch Vomit's Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave comes off solid, yet short all around.

First off the good side, this album is absolutely a death metal throwback album in all ways, if you’re a fan of either the Florida scene from the early 90’s or the Swedish scene from the late 80’s this album is for you, Witch Vomit offer a filthy and grueling display of pure death metal, gurgling death growls, distorted and treble heavy guitars punctuated by wailing solos and a frenzy drummer that’s borrows from the technical precision of band’s like Death and the sheer madness of golden age Cannibal Corpse and all comes together in a great way, all the members of the band display their love and passion for the genre and it shows, overall this album feels and sounds like a classic Swedish death metal record but with the production and refinement of a classic Florida death metal album, it sounds great and the music is brims with the enthusiasm for this music, it’s basically a death album for death metalheads by death metalheads.

That being said and as some more insightful people than me expressed, we have reached peak old school death metal revival, we’ve had so many amazing death metal bands in less than a decade from all over the world who have all released consistently good music that it’s almost like a buffet with nothing but delicious desserts and at some point you need a break and drink water and unfortunately for me, with Witch Vomit I’m burned out on so much solid death metal. I do recognize that this album is solid and Witch Vomit are in a good place to release even better music with their next albums but in present this album is simply too standard to really get excited.

Overall Witch Vomit are a worthy band to join the ranks of the crop of death metal revivalists but at the same time those ranks are overflowing, a good, solid album done with love and passion for the genre but not a modern masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination.

Written for www.metalbite.com

It is a mild rarity when a death metal band hits me with a record ‘new’ enough in context of their discography that it’d send me reeling into the recesses of my long term memory for the sake of wondering if I’d ever listened all that closely to them; Or, alternately, if they were ever as distinct as they are today. The answer is as complicated as the thought process in the sense that any stretch of time will create an equal quantity of ‘progress’ among artists who’ve agreed upon a singular vision. Sure, but how valuable is any perceptible progression (in fidelity, songwriting, sound design, tonal range, variation, etc.) within a sub-genre known for deeper traditions of iteration? My own old school death metal attuned senses continue to evolve with an eager eraser pointed at the drapery of ‘retro’ specific acts who’d rely on too-specific references and this despite loving those references. It’d seem the great hypocrisy of the ‘stick to the classics’ mentality is souring to the long term fan: To love the trend-selected ancients and merely like the bands influenced by them, despite their immensely high taste levels, creates a foundation of unwarranted nepotism that perpetuates the importance of demographically aimed content rather than transmutation in the hands of death metal lifers. Such transmuted craft ebbs from the minds of Portland, Oregon death metal band Witch Vomit who manage an appropriately succinct follow-up to their 2016 debut as they continue to pull away from puritanical Scandinavian death metal tonality while retaining a mild Finnish affect on ‘Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave’. It is a moderate evolution for the band but an undoubtedly notable listen all the same.

You’re still in the right ballpark in seeking similarities to debuts from Grave, Immolation, Demigod, and Funebrarum in the oeuvre Witch Vomit touts but prior hints of death/doom are even less prevalent here than they were on the ‘Poisoned Blood’ EP in 2017. Instead a decent number of Incantation-esque swerves provide greater characterization of ‘Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave’. These hallucinogenic curvatures aren’t an unexpected evolution but they offer a more meaningful shift than you’d think, allowing the band to stand out among the countless ‘old school’ death/doom influenced acts shared between Seattle and Portland. The trade-off is a faster, more intense pace that tends to veer away from currently popular primitive notions towards a sound that owes as much to ‘Dawn of Possession’ as it does “Shadows of the Past” or “Slumber of Sullen Eyes”. It all feels incredibly refined and even somewhat understated (for a death metal album) when considering the project’s origins as a duo creating primitive Swedish death metal (a la early Horrendous) on their ‘The Webs of Horror’ (2015) EP, complete with a typical HM-2 guitar tone. I’d still place Witch Vomit in the same league as early Tomb Mold (‘Primordial Malignity’) and Funebrarum above all else.

“Despoilment” may flow directly off of the momentum that the opener (“From Rotten Guts”) provides but its hook comes from a simple guitar technique that pays great dividends. This track isn’t a highlight solely because of a few tremolo dips during a riff but for its holistic representation of what Witch Vomit are today versus their less personalized beginnings. It is the same general boost in quality and conviction that their ‘old school’ brutal death project Torture Rack had enjoyed recently on ‘Malefic Humiliation’. All aspects of fidelity are improved but it is the attention to riff, composition, and the dynamic between rhythmic interest and embellishment that few classic death metal listeners ‘get’ unless they’ve scoured the underground for the right stuff. “Dead Veins” offers a similar hook but this time one of melodic composition turning the face of the album back towards their Swedish and Finnish influences and expounding upon them further on “Squirming in Misery”. Much of the greater differentiation from peers happens within these shorter songs that appear deliberately structured around subtle hooks, the effect is intermittently engaging at first but I’d quickly realized that the more attention I’d give to the two guitarists the more a full listen paid off at just under 28 minutes. In fact the addition of second guitarist Casey Lynch (Aldebaran, Trepanation) may explain why I’d felt like this was a bit of a leap compared to previous records as it appears written with two guitars in mind.

Even if it is just a belching growl (“Fumes of Dying Bodies”) or a swaying whammy bar there is a redeeming point of interest that punctuates each of the seven death metal songs that make up ‘Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave’. None of those details lack but not every song operates on an equal level of ingenuity and this means a couple tracks do end up feeling less considered than the rest. “Dripping Tombs” sounds like a B-side from ‘Manor of Infinite Forms’, for better or worse, and the title track feels like a redundant statement within the full listen despite its solid main riff. By keeping the content tightly written and succinct Witch Vomit get in and get out before things begin to tire but, maybe too quickly before the full listen becomes endearing. I don’t necessarily need a 45 minute opus to be satisfied but 3-5 more minutes might have provided a chance to create something slightly more dynamic from this already boiling pool of ideas. As is, this second record from the band is still easy to give a high recommendation for subtlety that bloomed into character over many listens. For preview purposes I’d suggest starting with “Despoilment” for a strong first impression then “Dead Veins” for its memorable outro then circle back to “From Rotten Guts” if you’re still undecided.

Attribution: https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/08/22/witch-vomit-buried-deep-in-a-bottomless-grave-2019-review/

Reviewing in a vacuum is probably the preferred way to do it by most bands. If an album is better than previous efforts, it shouldn’t shit on those past efforts, and if it’s not, it should stand alone. Normally, I try as much as possible to do that, but after Witch Vomit’s extremely acclaimed Poisoned Blood mLP annihilated the world a couple years ago, my excitement for this one was coloring my expectations a bit too much for a clean listen.

Fortunately, as it turns out, Buried Deep in a Rotten Grave stands well on its own merits and doesn’t waste time trying to show you that. There’s no long intro; there’s a single synth effect used for about eight seconds on opener “From Rotten Guts” and then Witch Vomit is already launching into a powerful and catchy riff. The core sound, as before, is not anything particularly new; the band play muscular and suffocating death metal that’s reminiscent of early American powerhouses with a bit of European melody added in.

It’s hard to point at any particular song as a great example of what Buried Deep sounds like because the record is impressively varied even as it continues to sound like Witch Vomit. Faster tremolo parts alternate with groovy power chords and even sections of doom and gloom, while the lead guitar keeps slower or more repetitive parts from getting stale with a varied attack that ranges from more discordant bits, repetitive off-kilter stuff that makes me think of Finland, and quick solos. Vocals alternate between deep gutturals and painful shrieks, and the drums move at a mile a minute during the faster sections without overplaying in slower ones—a sometimes rare judgement call for skilled drummers, but one that Filth handles behind the kit with ease. I can’t say that I ever noticed the bass as anything but a background rumble, but I assume that it’s a large part of the reason why the string assault is as thick as it is.

The production here is as monstrous as the music due to the one-two punch of Evan Mersky (recording and mixing) and Dan Randall (mastering). The instruments are all clearly audible (except the bass, which is a bit hard to distinguish from the guitar lines), but they don’t lose any punch for it, with the drums and guitars sounding particularly massive. Combined with the actual songwriting, the overall effect is decidedly modern in a way that lets the miasmal assault that is Witch Vomit properly wash over listeners rather than in the way that makes a lot of modern Nuclear Blast stuff sound so fucking shitty. It’s hard to say where this stands compared to Poisoned Blood and A Scream From The Tomb Below given how little time I’ve had to spend with it comparatively, but regardless, it’s a good record and I’m glad that Witch Vomit made it.

As an end note, it must be said that these fellows clearly like brevity just as much in Witch Vomit as they do in Torture Rack, which half of Witch Vomit also plays in—coming in at 27:43, Buried Deep In A Bottomless Grave is a whopping three seconds longer than last year’s Torture Rack album, and none of the four albums between both bands have hit the 31 minute mark yet. This is an advantage, as the albums are clearly written with this sort of length in mind, and it leaves you wanting more rather than feeling abrupt—so go forward and listen to some more Witch Vomit when you’ve finished this one, because it’s worth it!

Originally written for Toilet Ov Hell.