Band: Vomitory
Title: Opus Mortis VIII
Label: Metal Blade Records
Distribution: Rough Trade Benelux.
Release date: April 23rd 2011
Review: CD

More than twenty years of vomitorious supremacy in mean time, and still these oldies rule the scene, not turning into soft and melo-emo stuff, yet showing the youngsters you don’t need to be some teenager to know how to define DEATH METAL the most brutal way! It is one of those bands that never gave in, that never followed any commercial trend, that never turned into a tiresome direction…
In the beginning, some demos and an EP got recorded, yet it wasn’t until 1996 that Vomitory released their debut full length, Raped In Their Own Blood (Fadeless Records). The same label took care of the release of album # 2, Redemption (1999), which showed an enormous progression, protagonising the band’s typical style as from then on. Then the band signed to Metal Blade, and a handful of really wonderful full lengths followed: Revelation Nausea (2001), Blood Rapture (2002), Primal Massacre (2004), Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize (2007), and Carnage Euphoria (2009; review posted on July 20th 2009; as from 2001’s Blood Rapture on, the reviews are still available within the archives section).
Throughout those years, the band played hundreds of gigs all over the world. Initially it was especially the Swedish underground scene that could enjoy the band performing live on stage, yet soon the rest of Mater Terra could experience this band’s sonic terror.

Shortly after finishing a huge tour throughout the U.S. (with Malevolent Creation), Vomitory started writing new material for their eighth full length. In 2010, the quartet (founding member / guitarist Urban Gustafsson, his brother Tobias on drums, bass player / grunter Erik Rundqvist [who, by the way, took over the vocal duties as from the moment the band signed to their current label], and second guitarist Peter Östlund) entered the Leon Music Studio again with producer Rikard Löfgren (he took care of the production of both former studio recordings as well). The result, Opus Mortis VIII, goes on in the vein of all former material (meaning: the characterising elements are wonderfully present), yet there might be a little more diversity, I guess.

Playing brutal stuff, it’s something everyone can do, as a matter of fact. Doing it this way is something else. Of course it has to do with the members’ more-than-two-decades-long experience, yet the interaction and cohesion are thumbs up. And if put this together with an ingeniously perfected mixture of all details (instruments and vocals), you can imagine another superb epos, not?!
I was somewhat afraid to hear the same kind of shit again, yet again this album isn’t just an adapted version of any former effort. …Indeed, in spite of the very specific and characterising Vomitory-approach, a new level gets reached again.
However, I am not as positively shocked this time. No, don’t get me wrong: Opus Mortis VIII has not one single disgusting element – yet the non-stoppable progression the band underwent has faded a little. And the overall tempo did slow down a little (which isn’t necessarily a minor detail, of course, because the intensity remains as heavy-as-f*ck.

!!! there is a limited digi-pack edition which includes four bonus tracks: re-recorded versions from the first two albums !!!

85/100

Ivan Tibos.