The past few years have seen a growing interest in death metal, and this interest has sparked a revival that has increased the number of phenomenal death metal bands of every style across the globe. With renewed interested and vigor being injected into the veins of the global death metal scene, it’s only appropriate for death and grind fanatics young and old to examine their musical roots and listen to the pioneers who hammered away in the 80’s and early 90’s, often in total obscurity from larger metal scene.

Among those hallowed bands, Philadelphia’s Goreaphobia stands as not only one of the earliest and best death metal bands of the era, but also as the owner of one of the most impressive lists of former members the world has ever seen. Impressive not only in length, Goreaphobia’s former members have been involved with such luminous bands as: Incantation, Immolation, Disciples of Mockery, Evoken, Engorge, Funebrarum, Revenant, Funerus, Absu, Blood Storm, Mortician, and dozens of other, lesser known acts. Unfortunately, the revolving door approach to membership has hurt Goreaphobia in the sense that even though the band has persevered through more than 20 long years, the band has never managed to record its long promised, and long awaited full-length album.

With such a rich history, Goreaphobia has been rightly honored by the 2006-2007 release of Vile Beast of Abomination by Necroharmonic productions, which manages to include both new, old, and classic live material, in addition to a detailed 13 page history of the band written by John Verica, a longtime friend and confidant of founding members Alexander Bouks and Christopher Gamble. I’m usually disinclined to review additional material that comes with an album, because very often those extras are provided to make up for weak or uninteresting music. To Goreaphobia’s credit, the material included with Vile Beast of Abomination is worth the price of admission alone, and it’s fantastic to read the in-depth story of Goreaphobia and those who worked to make it great. Along with Verica’s history of Goreaphobia are a collection of concert flyers, cover art, live photos and informal pictures of the cast of characters that has made up Goreaphobia since its earliest days in 1986 (when it was still known as Infamy).

Extra material aside, the material compiled for Vile Beast of Abomination is mostly outstanding, with a few of the tracks suffering from poor sound quality. Of the 12 tracks compiled for Vile Beast of Abomination, the first four are the newest, being recorded in 2004, along with two songs from 1991’s Omen of Masochism, three from 1990’s Morbidous Pathology, and three final tracks were recorded during one of Goreaphobia’s early live performances at the 1990 “Day of Death” festival in Buffalo, New York. Of the four newly recorded songs, only "Wraith Reaper" and "Creator Chaos" are newly written songs, as "Cremate in Hate" and "Chronic Blood Larva" are long time Goreaphobia classics. The five tracks culled from Omen of Masochism and Morbidous Pathology are outstanding and desirable on their own, considering the serious rarity of almost everything Goreaphobia has released.

The weakest material on Vile Beast of Abomination is without question the three live tracks which finish the album. Though I appreciate the historical value of the recording, (“Day of Death” was the first all-death metal festival in the United States) the sound is very muddy, and the vocals are almost lost in the hazy mix. Sound quality aside, the live tracks are still listenable and stand as a testament to Goreaphobia’s ability to tightly execute their material live.

Vile Beast of Abomination is an absolute must for anyone who is even moderately interested in death metal and everyone in the metal scene not exposed to one of the unsung legends of the American extreme metal underground. Fans of dark and unrelenting death metal like that produced by Incantation, Immolation, Drawn and Quartered, and Dead Congregation are doing themselves a disservice by not investigating Goreaphobia; the material compiled for Vile Beast of Abomination is some of the most influential death metal ever recorded, and without Goreaphobia, the American death metal scene would be a much weaker and less interesting place.

Review byLeif