Reviews: Vomit Forth, Turkey Vulture, Disarray, Smoke/Doomsday Profit (Reviews By Mark Young & Rich Piva)

Vomit Forth - Terrified of God (Century Media Records) [Mark Young]

It takes possibly about 12 seconds for Vomit Forth to brutally draw a line in the sand as they detonate Victim Impact Statement with a crushing tone and looowwwww guttural vocals. It literally sets the scene for the next 27 minutes as they blow through 12 songs of full-on metal that are equally as home with blasts as they are with slowing to almost sludge-like tempos. The result is the same, music that is attempting to remove your brains from out of your ears whether you like it or not. 

There is no off switch here, they hit that ceiling on that first song and then stay there, running into Sacred Apple that blasts into Blood Soaked Death Dream and it feels that there are no natural breaks between songs with the intent to cause maximum pain at every turn. What works in their favour is keeping the songs short, which ensures that each one hits home every time without allowing for any kind of repetition to set in which is massive when the songs themselves are delivered in the same way from start to end. 

What you have is a basic blueprint which is embellished depending on the track. Blood Lead Index differs from the above whilst keeping that overall theme of total over the top violently delivered extreme metal in place, the pace increased with an explosive start with drums that are hanging on for dear life before they rip the place up with Poison Child, a 2minute and 28 second trem pick nightmare. Moving onto later tracks, they squeeze a whispered interlude in under the name of the title track before squashing it with Fear Of Retaliation which takes in every death metal riff trope in a rapid-fire measure.

The final two, Rotting Wool and Salt, close us out with more of the same, mixing the fast/slow to admittedly great effect. Rotting Wool has this great grinding riff that comes in about 1minute 20, with some serious chugging straight after while Salt manages to up the energy further with a great riff/vocal build that just enhances the fact that played live this (just like the rest of the album would cause serious harm).

Considering that the mission statement was to dial everything up compared to their last release, you could say that they have succeeded with that. I do feel as though my review seems to reflect that I haven’t quite nailed down how I feel about the album. On one hand, it’s brutal, never stopping to see the carnage left behind and for that I applaud it because they stay on target right to the end.

On the other hand, because of that adherence to task and that blueprint you lose track of where one song ends and the other kicks in. Everything is there, as well it should be, but it’s compressed to fit within short runtimes but then going back to my comment about short songs = no boredom it makes me look as though I’m arguing for no reason. I guess this means that I’m ambivalent to it, which is annoying. I like it, but not enough to love it. 7/10

Turkey Vulture - On The List (Self Released) [Rich Piva]

Turkey Vulture are a low-fi punk/metal duo out of Connecticut who bring us a fun little six song EP called On The List which incorporates all sorts of heavy stuff in the most charmingly DIY sort of way. Twelve minutes of all over the place fun that is really hard to pin down label wise, but you will hear just about every heavy genre in that twelve-minute span.

Friends Like Us sounds like a garage punk ripper where the singer was pulled from a metal band and told to punk it up, and it really works. The chorus is classic 80s punk and would get the pit going for sure. Untitled sounds like it started out as lo-fi black metal but morphed into something more from a band like 7 Year Bitch, which is very cool.

Dollhouse has early Suicidal vibes but if it was sung by Satan instead of Cyco Miko. Or maybe it doesn’t. Whatever it sounds like it is cool. Adults Destroy is under a minute of black punk metal. Yup. Ripper. Someone has Black Flag records. Harvest Moon is not a Neil Young cover. It is old school black metal, until it is not. Jill The Ripper on the other hand is Murder By Death via Nick Cave and I am here for it.

Nothing is going to sound like On The List that you listen to this year, which is saying something. This is super fun and totally worth the short amount of time it will take you to get through it. Turkey Vulture have something to keep an ear out for in the future as there is something very exciting brewing in Connecticut. 7/10

Disarray - Religious Disease (Jawbreaker Records) [Mark Young]

And now a touch of Swedish Thrash.

 
Religious Disease is their second full length release, and it follows on from Evil Is Reborn which landed in 2023. A quick note on Jawbreaker Records who are doing sterling work in bringing the underground to the likes of you and me. Disarray formed in 2022 and since then have worked solidly to build themselves to be one of the bands to watch.

Their approach is simple – keep it aggressive.

On that front they have succeeded because it doesn’t take any time at all for you to realise that they are not looking to the usual suspects for their influence although there is a certain Slayer vibe in there (and if we are talking a period, let’s say 83 through to 88).

 
Forbidden Of Speech opens their account and it’s just 4-minute kicking that brings you what the classic thrash movement had – everything played as though they are hanging on for dear life. The tone is brittle, but instead of it being tinny like those releases of yesteryear, you can hear everything with razor sharp riff work from Valter Ernerot (Rhythm) and Lucas Lee (Lead, vocals) who also throws in a fret mangling solo too. So far, so good. There is a slow lumbering burn to Nightmarish Gaze before it throws those shackles off and boot it forward. 

This is the classic thrash one-two, the rapid opener followed up by a slower tempo that shows more of the band off in terms of how they put their songs together. Just for the record its still fast. But slower. If that makes sense. What it does show is that they know how and when to put those incendiary solo’s in. Its grab you and drag you along for the ride. There is no faulting Bound To Kill, it starts at an accelerated pace and keeps that fiendish pace in check. They do drop off to allow for what I believe will become a live shout along of ‘BORN TO KILL’ that is underpinned by some class guitar work that keeps feeling of movement going.

 
Hell’s Fire has that Slayer vibe to it, everything locked in and ready to move up through the gears. This is one of those where it builds in waves, the guitar then the drums all increasing in intensity, but I think would have worked better if it had been trimmed slightly. For me, some of the best songs are delivered in short, violent blasts but this has some class running through it. 

Psychosis keeps this theme going, and it hits like Malevolent Creation from The Ten Commandments era where the vocals are racing almost ahead of the music. Its frenetic and drops in some classic thrash motifs but it also highlights the need for the band to be a little ruthless in those track lengths. This and Hell’s Fire should have been shorter (again, in my opinion) because they both share common ideas which have been stretched a little too far. Guilty Until Proven Innocent has a massive riff that comes in once the gentle opening bars wrap allowing for them to rip through it, albeit in that slower, more measured way. 

In terms of application, there is nothing wrong with this at all, Its just that of the six songs so far they have all shared a similar length and now there is a sense of fatigue growing as the remaining songs come thick and fast – Realise You’re Already Dead is fast, riffy and also very similar to the earlier tracks whilst Religious Disease also suffers from that sense of familiarity. I feel that I must point out that each of these songs are well done and do a lot to establish that they have the sufficient tools to write songs that in the future could be held up as prime examples of how to do this right.

Inhuman Reign (Bonus Track) is a decent track as a bonus but if it wasn’t included, I don’t think it would be a massive disappointment. There is massive promise here with this, the main ingredients are here and there is an intensity to them in how they apply themselves to the craft that is amazing which bodes well for the future. 7/10

Smoke/Doomsday Profit - Smoke/Doomsday Profit Split LP (Olde Magick Records) [Rich Piva]

Three new songs each from Smoke and Doomsday Profit? Where do I sign up? How about on the Olde Magick Records Bandcamp page where the label is nice enough to offer you these slabs of heavy doom in multiple formats. I really dig both of these bands, especially Smoke, so I am very excited for what this one is going to bring. As you can imagine, there are a bunch of bands out there called Smoke. This one (my favourite one) is out of Lynchburg, Virginia and brought us the excellent record Groupthink back in 2022 which was filled with outstanding fuzzy doom. 

Now we get three more killer doom tracks, still fuzzy and just as good as the tracks on the amazing Groupthink. The first track, Appalachian Black Magick, sounds exactly like a song with that title should. This is eight and half minutes of doom straight out of the mountains of Virginia that is slow, heavy, and fuzzy in parts and faster, heavy, and fuzzy in others. I love the tempo changes and the overall sound of this song. The production is perfect and the vibe is exactly what I want from my Appalachian doom. Great stuff. Scavenger is more of a heavy rocker that picks up the pace and shows the band doesn’t need to crawl to be effective. This one has some grungily elements to it and has some AIC vibes to go along with the already killer stoner doom thing Smoke has going on. Heavy. I love when it shows a bit and that psych leaning guitar takes over towards the end. 

Speaking of heavy and psych guitars, Hellish Rebuke kicks all sorts of ass and just rocks. I love the scream from the bowels of hell too that goes along with all the riffs, until we settle in to something that gives me serious Trouble vibes in parts. Nice. I am less familiar with Durham, North Carolina’s Doomsday Profit, but what I have heard I really liked. These three songs are no different, but those of you who prefer the clean vocals may not dig the DP songs as much as the Smoke tunes, but give it a chance because this is some serious heavy. Sludgy doom goodness is what you get from these three songs, just crawling across the earth destroying all in its wake type of sludgy doom. 

I love the guitar work on No Salvation and the chanting type vocals that go along with the growls on I Am Your God, which also has some killer instrumentation and more of that great guitar work. The closer, Void Ritual, is more of the same heavy goodness and my favourite of the three tracks. I love split albums and I love them even more when they are as good as the songs that Smoke and Doomsday Profit bring to the table. Excellent heavy goodness from some of the best the U.S. has to offer on the doom front. 8/10