EP Title: Abhorrent Rapture
Genre/ Subgenre: Death Metal
Label: 20 Buck Spin
Release Date: Digital Download: June 18, 2021, CD and Cassette: July 2, 2021, and Vinyl: September 10, 2021
Fans, like myself, have been clamoring for a new release from Witch Vomit following their brutal 2019 sophomore record Buried Deep in a Bottomless Grave. To stratify us and sedate our hunger, the Oregon death metal band have given us, Abhorrent Rapture, a four song EP of gore-drenched viciousness.
The first track is "Purulent Burial Mound". It starts off with a sample of haunting horror sounds and music and goes right into its blistering and thundering riff. The sound is all encompassing and brutal, leading right into a mix of killer groove and slaughtering blast-beats. Next up is"Funeral Purgation" which begins with a lightning fast assuallt that suddenly slows down to a dark and deliciously evil sounding breakdown. This is actually one of my favorite parts in the entire album. "Necrometamorphosis" is a merciless and uncompromising song, with a driving, unrelenting tempo and a breakdown that evokes a nightmare or particularly creepy horror movie. The lead break that follows is like Slayer on super-speed. This all amounts to my favorite song on the album. The fourth and final track is the title song. It erupts from its start with some head pounding blast-beats. It is a full blown attack of speed and galloping brutality, slowing down only to elicit imagines of terror in your mind. You can picture the legions of the dead rising and jumping into a brutal mosh pit of the undead.
The production on the album sounds dark and menacing with thick sounds and an aural landscape of living dead evil. I especially like how vocalist and guitarist Tempter's vocals sound unhuman and wonderfully monstrous, adding to the nightmarish feel.
With four tracks of brutality and heaviness, Witch Vomit continue to deliver the evil goods on Abhorrent Rapture. Mixing atmosphere and unstoppable savagery, this is death metal at its best. With a combination of old school American death metal and a heavy influence of Entombed-styled Euro death metal that barfs up some evil, death metal goodness.