Maybe it’s because I’m an out of touch grumpy forty-five year old but I was prepared to be utterly underwhelmed by this, the debut release from Texans Venereal Baptism.
Firstly…. They’re called “Venereal Baptism” and secondly they have a band member named “Fermentor”. What does he do? Run around fermenting things? This made me chuckle and then sigh. So I put off listening to the album for a bit. This turned out to be a classic “book / cover” scenario as despite the, frankly, pants band name Venereal Baptism have produced a killer record here. Full of blasphemous, blackened death metal played to perfection.
Formed in 2014 the band (back then just DH & Adversor) released a six track EP, “Progenitor Of All Aberrations” since then a full line-up has been established and Osmose have snapped them up.
The album begins with a creepy atmospheric intro then we’re off into a maelstrom of driving buzzsaw riffage and ludicrously on point drumming (courtesy of “Warblast”).
The songs are all of a similar style and sound but make no mistake, this is not boring. From the mad dive bombing guitar solos of Fermentor on tracks like “Impure And Perpetual” to some really creative drum fills from Mr Warblast there’s always something grabbing your attention from within the grinding blasphemous nastiness. This is a total unrelenting bulldozer of a record, tracks like “…Victorious!” simply kill and “Gothrapemachine” will no doubt upset the PC brigade with its minute and a half of nastiness so that’s another plus point as far as I’m concerned!
No lo-fi “super kvlt” production here either, no sir. The scalpel sharp and crystal clear production courtesy of band founder and guitarist, Adversor, makes the eight tracks all the more efficient in their satanic attack and the intelligible yet ferocious vocals of D.H. (no idea what that stands for…) suit the music perfectly and lend the band a certain amount of individuality.
This whole album is a blast. Venereal Baptism approach black metal in a similar way to Marduk. They do what they want and do not follow convention or boundaries, in fact both bands would probably piss all over a “black metal rule book” if you had one. Well worth your time.
Zero waft, maximum Satan!
(8/10 Mark Eve)
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