Vitriol celebrates its return in 2024.
After an excellent album in 2019 and a reissue of their first demo, the band led since 2013 (after a first life as Those Who Lie Beneath) by Adam Roethlisberger (vocals/bass) and Kyle Rasmussen (vocals/guitar), accompanied by Matt Kilner (drums, Gorgasm, Nithing) and Daniel Martinez (guitar, ex-Atheist) unveil Suffer Become, their second album, on Century Media Records.
Stephen Ellis (Cybercrime, ex-I, Detest), the band’s former guitarist, took part in the recording of his instrument.
Shame and its Afterbirth, the first track, opens with a few ominous notes which intensify as they welcome the onslaught of violence. Blasts and frenzied riffs are draped as much in dissonance as they are in devastating sonorities, as are the visceral howls that complete the hurricane of raw but highly crafted strength found in leads that guide into the crushing The Flowers of Sadism. The approach slightly changes, letting the band first explore heaviness before unleashing an avalanche of blistering harmonics at full speed, perfectly complementing the massive vocal parts before Nursing from the Mother Wound takes over. The track’s piercing tones naturally combine with waves of rage and wild screams, adding that disturbing touch complementing the violence, before revealing a more haunting rhythm on the opening moments of The Isolating Lie of Learning Another, before returning to powerful Old School eruptions, whether in riffs or vocals. We have a few more plaintive but just as intense passages before an abrupt final, then it’s with Survivals Careening Inertia, an instrumental track that the band tries their hand at gentleness, while dying it with darkness and then letting it ignite thanks to a solid blast followed by its usual infernal saturation. The furious vocal parts return in the impressive Weaponized Loss, which also features some oppressive orchestration to accompany this relentless tidal wave of ripping riffs, which continues on Flood of Predation and its unstoppable rhythm. The track remains incredibly constant from start to finish, even incorporating more majestic keyboards or a suffocating break before the final, which throws us towards Locked in Thine Frothing Wisdom, whose rhythm is just as beastly. Nothing seems to be able to stop the musicians in their quest for bloodthirsty violence, which continues with I am Every Enemy and its screaming harmonics, which the band integrates into an as heavy as unhealthy basis, before closing the album with He Will Fight Savagely, whose evocative name won’t make me lie, while proving once again how complete the mastery of the instruments is in every aspect.
Since their last album, Vitriol‘s name has been associated with the purest savagery, and Suffer Become can only contribute to this bloodthirsty reputation, as the band has improved so much. The year has barely begun, but it’s already revealed one of its finest Death Metal albums!
95/100