Never having listened to Vomitory before, despite their popularity, I came into this review expecting one distinct thing. From looking at the title of the album Terrorize Brutalize Sodomize, I expected this to be a Ronnie Dobbs (from the classic Mr. Show TV series) concept album. I expected to hear 40+ minutes of death metal talking about a man’s house being his castle, everyone brutalizing the vocalist, the vocalist sodomizing many women, and a plethora of sound samples of the band being arrested for domestic abuse. Hell, I expected the arrests to take place in the studio with their producer, too. But nevertheless, I expected Ronnie Dobbs, the death metal experience.

This is not Ronnie Dobbs, the death metal experience. Well shit.

Vomitory play a style of death metal that combines elements of the various Swedish stalwarts, the groove of death n roll, the thrash influence of Slayer, and the technical ability and harsh aesthetic of Vader. The musicianship is particularly tight, and the groove is delivered copiously, but holy hell it bores the shit out of me. I’m having flashbacks to Exmortem’s Nihilistic Contentment, a release that had all the right parts but nothing to really grab my interest. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m losing it. Or maybe it’s just an instance of something particularly being up someone’s alley. But Vomitory, despite all its groove, cannot hold my attention for that long at all. To me a lot of the songs just bleed into one another and little hold any particular identity over the others. It’s just faceless death metal.

This album probably could have used repeated referencing of Ronnie Dobbs. Maybe hearing an adult man randomly swoon about police brutalizing him over a bottle of night train then going into a guttural growl about his coke being flour would have held my interest longer. However, as it stands, there is no Ronnie Dobbs. And I am bored.

Written By: Necro-tron