Portland’s Vitriol are one of the most perfectly named bands in metal; their music is unrelenting, violent, brutal and pummelling. Releasing their debut EP – Pain Will Define Their Death – in 2017, they immediately made an unforgettable impact on the world of death metal and they cemented their burgeoning reputation two years later with their full-length debut, To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice. Support slots with Nile, Cattle Decapitation, Atheist and Vader confirmed the fact that they could replicate their indomitable vituperations on stage.
With To Suffer and Become, Vitriol are determinedly unyielding in their desire to produce the most vicious music possible. “The title really sums it up,” says guitarist and vocalist Kyle Rasmussen. "I pushed things to a point while making this album where it almost became untenable. Things that were supposed to be done in weeks took months. It wasn't easy, but I think it was suffering well spent." On To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice, Vitriol immediately attacked with their full arsenal. During the first minute of the opening track on To Suffer And Become - Shame and Its Afterbirth - the band create one of the most disturbing, uneasy beginnings to an album this side of Hell Awaits. When, a little over ninety seconds in, Vitriol already reach terminal velocity, we are viciously thrust into their unforgiving world. Where they stand apart from many black metal bands is in their lyrical intensity and depth. Shame and Its Afterbirth delves deep into the themes of nature versus nurture and the more animalistic aspects of human nature and the artificial, more stifling constructs of modern life. The primordial intuition shakes a fruit of perfection free / It hides deep in the withering field of modernity / Motes of the fire eternal from a fresh stomach glow / Eyes that have witnessed all now denied what they know / Blazing trumpets raze whispers from the air / Their burst bellies spilling secrets in the soil / A new perfume tosses the scent of the Earth / A mind, a body, caught within lines of safety drawn before their birth. Just over four minutes in, for a few seconds only, Vitriol would have us believe the track might slow down but this segues into a cacophony of even more intense mercilessness, ultimately resolving itself with a lengthy guitar solo which is one of the most breath-taking displays of technical prowess on the album.
To Suffer and Become will be amongst the most vulgar delights released during the year; however, Vitriol already show some signs of evolving from their full-length debut. Profusely Cimmerian the album may be, but tracks such as The Flowers Of Sadism (during which the opening salvo crosses momentarily into death doom and the band close with an eerie echo floating in the ether) shows a willingness to experiment - this time with signs of a densely melanised but unmistakeable groove. Similar musical flourishes appear during The Isolating Lie of Learning Another, which covers a plethora of metal territory: straying into sonics associated with acts such as Fit For An Autopsy and Cannibal Corpse; moments of beautifully anguished obsidian guitar; and sections of head pounding chaos. Another lyrically intense song, it partially examines the gut-wrenching feeling of being deceived or misused by those closest to us. I have wept, and I have mourned before each curtain torn / The ruin of a wish lain quartered at my feet / For what I longed to find there, beyond meek curtsies and Trojan stares / Was but the froth of hungers most hidden.
Nowhere is Vitriol’s willingness to experiment more apparent than on instrumental Survival’s Careening Inertia. Gorgeously desolate yet ethereal guitar leads us down a false path at the track’s beginning as it soon metamorphosises into a belligerent, bloody colossus, pausing only briefly for a few seconds of threatening solipsism. Matt Kilner’s drumming is incredible throughout the album and here he manages to pull the listener further into the endlessly dark abyss. The two ends of the music spectrum explored on Survival’s Careening Inertia perfectly crystalise the state of mind of Rasmussen during the creation of the album. "The record feels a bit like a Jungian Dante's Inferno," he states. "Plumbing the circles of my personal, psychological, and spiritual hell and then purposely refocusing it so it's not the unhinged, dark catharsis of the first album. This record is a lot more vulnerable."
Produced by Rasmussen and mixed by the legendary Dave Otero (known for his work with Archspire and Cattle Decapitation), the destructive, tumultuous sound of the album is deliberately recalcitrant but there is also development here. To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice did not always do justice to Adam Roethlisberger and here there is far more opportunity to appreciate his contributions even on the completely unrelenting songs (of which there are many) such as Locked In Thy Frothing Wisdom or closing track He Will Fight Savagely – a metaphorical odyssey into self-transformation and a battle which is as much spiritual or psychological as it is physical.
Weaponised Loss - in which we are asked not to simply endure loss but to actively embrace it as a tool for growth – uses the imagery of warfare and weaponry to describe an internal, emotional struggle and the fortification of the self against future pain. New arms gleam in the light of isolation. Blades spark against the whetstone of grief / My steel sharpens with every fresh departure / As I train in the art of letting go. Rasmussen calls Weaponised Loss a “dark baptism” and while it is as savage and malevolent as anything else on the album, there are small signs of hope, even if it seen through the lens of initially having suffered tragedy. "I wanted to have an album that had a stark duality to it," says Kyle. "Very high highs and very low lows. We're very familiar with the lows but not so much with the triumphant highs. I wanted the album to have more of a sense of optimism to it, both lyrically and musically. I wanted the album to convey a sense of optimism that probably gets lost in the black maelstrom that is the first album."
Vitriol are extreme, even by the standards of some classic death metal bands but therein lies the dilemma for the most seasoned and certainly more recent fans of death metal. As it was designed to be, To Suffer and Become is a traumatic and chilling album. Technically it is one of the best death metal records you are likely to hear this year; both Rasmussen and fellow guitarist Stephen Ellis put have everything they have to offer within these ten songs. Those listeners willing to surrender themselves to the disorder and dissonance within will certainly find lyrics to challenge your own demons and music to challenge your own resilience. Whether you remain the same person forty-seven minutes later depends on what lurks within your own psyche.
Written: 12th January 2024
To Suffer and Become is released on January 26th 2024.
Watch the video of Shame and its Afterbirth below.
Right on, man!