Vomitizer - Release the Rats
Vomitizer. Not a household name. Something inconceivably catastrophic or bizarre would need to happen for that to change. Nevertheless, coming up with a band name like Vomitzer does several things at once. Firstly, before hearing a fraction of a note from their phlegmy racket, you can safely bet your mortgage that this isn’t just death metal, but death metal of a decidedly putrid aroma. Secondly, album reviews of bands with overtly death metal names tend to write themselves often even before the record starts spinning.
Indeed, Release the Rats looks packaged up to be yet another cutlet of nostalgic Autopsy worship but, though it involves a wee bit of that, Vomitizer throw a bit more into the mix, encompassing sub-Big Four thrash, crusty death metal, and even an occasional soupcon of black metal.
Speaking plainly, Vomitizer, sound like fans playing music they love: dyed-in-the-battle-jacket-wool thrash / death metalheads having the time of their lives making a gleefully ugly din. The Norwegians have an endearingly DIY low-fi approach and it sounds they are jamming in a haunted basement dive bar, most likely with a large rodent infestation. They throw around puss and beer-stained, simplistic, old-school riffs with aplomb.
A Wonderful World to Destroy and Rat Religion are redolent of a more deathed up version of Exodus’ speed excess. They switch between high-tempo thrash such as this and lugubrious death sludge (Rattus Rituals, The Church of Rats, The Reek of Death). This music is neither convoluted nor highly technical. The riffs are honest, uncomplicated and sincere death and thrash. The singed-larynx pan-fried screams of vocalist Peterror’s are relentless and raspy throughout and add to the consciously unrefined delivery of the record. The production, meanwhile, helps create the aesthetic of a sound so inherently old school and underground it could almost be a gem of the tape trading era.
When it comes this sub-genre of music, it’s usually wise to be brief and punchy and Vomitizer do just that, with a sordid, uncouth, rampaging wee record. Is this a classic of our age? Nah. Nor was intended to be. Is it a joyfully repugnant piece of death metal good fun. Yes. After all, no point being ratty.
Release the Rats was released via underground records