A couple of years ago I got a promo CD by Arkansas-based death metallers Vore requesting a review of their latest full length offering Maleficus. I tossed the disc at the bottom of a box after just one look at the fucking awful cover art that looks like a shitty mix of Deicide’s trifixion logo from Legion and Morbid Angel’s stupid pentagram logo from Domination. I assumed the material contained within would suck as much as the cover art and forgot about it until I recently started digging up old promo material to review. After sitting down and listening to Maleficus I gave myself a swift punch to the temple for judging a book by it’s cover because this album is fucking badass!

The music of Vore is old school death metal fused with modern death metal in the vein of Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation, Nile, Grave, Obituary, Incantation and Immolation. The thing that really surprised the fuck out of me is the material on Maleficus is just as strong as the early works of those aforementioned bands.

The riffs are thick and chuggy with a meaty bass tone, backed by a steady percussive assault fronted by deep powerful growls. It’s impossible to listen to Maleficus while sitting still, the steady rhythm is hypnotic and infectious and it’ll get your head nodding and toes tapping on the very first listen. There’s a surprising amount of variety to the songs despite the steady rhythm throughout the release, it’s obvious the guys in this band put a lot of effort into song writing on this one, because every track kills!

By the time you’ve listened to it a handful of times you’ll be growling along while air drumming and air guitaring like a fanboy. This is one of those discs you really need to listen to in a room by yourself otherwise people will think you’re a fucking retard growling into your fist and air guitaring.

Vore has a sound that’ll leave you feeling like the disc was released back in ‘91 and you’ve been listening to it for the past 17 years. I honestly have to say after listening to this album I can’t believe they haven’t been picked up by Ibex Moon Records or someone even bigger than that. There are no bad songs on Maleficus, beginning to end it’s ridiculously catchy, heavy and straight up fucking evil.

I made the mistake of waiting 3 years to listen to Vore, make sure you don’t wait as long as I did to check them out. Seriously, somebody sign this fucking band!

Written By: Teufel