Review Summary: Vitriol will riff savagely.
Vitriol are a celebration of all things in sonic excess. They are a cacophonous amalgamation of all possible off-kilter chaotic sounds that can be presented within the strict confines of death metal, which wouldn’t be terribly impressive if not for the sheer scale in which they actually manage to accomplish this. Hell, I would argue the entire foundation of deathcore lies within these principles, and yet it often seems to miss the premises of what makes something genuinely
freaky, what actually causes that enjoyable menace that makes one’s testes drop ten times over. In the case of Vitriol, they eject this deathcore formula and embrace the philosophy, instead taking pages from the book of Hate Eternal and adding a hundred new chapters.
To say the least,
Suffer and Become is a
busied record, with hypernova blast beats being a surprisingly consistent bedrock to support the even more dizzying guitar wizardry that lays overneath. There are sweeps and tremolos galore, sometimes happening separately and at other times occurring in one fell stroke, and in either case they are played at speeds that a human ear can just narrowly process. It’s rare that the gas is ever let off of, and when it is it’s usually to make one for a dismal
sludgy goddamn riff. This is presented extremely well off of “Flowers of Sadism” by the 3:17 mark, wherein the pulsing of wicked trems and arpeggios ends with a gnarled squeal, to then drop into some grotesquely meaty chugs and the most frightening caveman gutturals to ever grace this side of death metal.
While speed and pandemonium are the tour de force of this record there is a surprisingly apt sense of variety that almost manage to feign something resembling respite, which is what makes homogeny surprisingly hard to find in what could otherwise be a monotonous trudging guttural fest. “The Isolating Lie of Another” begins this trend by beginning with a much slower, grimier, and daresay groovier riff than what is present off most of the record, to then spiral into a miasmic meltdown in which a beautiful cathartic shred emerges from the musk and darkness. There is also the instrumental track “Survival’s Careening Inertia” in which tremolos flutter in and out of existence almost gracefully, like a butterfly twirling from a beautiful flower field until it is met by a volcanic wasteland stripped of life and nutrient (this being when that NASTY down tuning kicks into play).
You can then ask yourself having thoroughly read (or rather skimmed over this review to find how many times I say “nasty riff” as your deciding factor as to whether you should jam this) is this all not more complicated means to an end to simply make something sound
heavy? To that I say hell yeah it is! In those brain-bludgeoning riff-fests and crazed caveman bellows and kick pedal devastation, there isn’t much regarding a variety of feeling or “atmosphere” to be found. For as much nuance as this record contains it is committed to its end goal, almost admirably so, which is nothing but anger and spite and unrelenting death metal that almost seems like a personification of itself. It is the animalistic, primal essence of death metal amplified one hundredfold, and for that I must say-sweet ***, it rules, jam this.
