Album Review: Embryectomy – Vitriolic Baptism
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
A decade on from their Gluttonous Mastication of Embryonic Remnants debut, Athenians Embryectomy are all set to issue their all-important third album and their first for Unique Leader Records.
Arriving six-years on from the sophomore Flamethrower Ecdysis, Vitriolic Baptism has the three-piece taking the crushing heaviness for which they are renown and twisting it into all manner of unnatural shapes. In my review of the band at Offal Fest 4 back in the summer, I wrote that their live show was slow and slamming, with heavy, chugging riff and monstrous breakdowns and I do not see myself disagreeing with that assessment as I sit and listen to this.
From the very beginning the scene is set with the howling winds and tolling bell of instrumental introduction Progeny Shredder; the guitars are clean, the drums rumble with ample cymbal abuse and each strike of sting or skin brings with it an obscene level of sheer brutality.
Guitarist, Marinos Tountas’ performance is a study in measured restraint as he builds atmosphere through a less-is-more approach. Slow and slicing riffs in Ecumenical Lobotomy combine with Kyriakos Destounis’ vocals and former .357 Homicide, Pulsate and Disgracing drummer, Jake Gamble, to give the feeling of being gradually eviscerated. Cranioclastic Infanticide lumbers like heavily laden tortoise with a back knee, in a raw and visceral progression; Psychoneurotic Hecatomb starts with what sounds like a snippet from Family Guy and turns into mammoth statement of destructive intent through portentous drums and sharp, stabbing guitar.
It’s not all doomy and funereally paced: Sanctimonious Episcopicide opens with an explosive rumble and settles into a technical mid-tempo blast; Carbonized Genesis has an Evil Dead soundbite, dirty riffing and a more urgent approach, and Chainsaw Symphysiotomy has Marinos’ strings replicating the titular devise with uncompromising levels of face-ripping.
Epicardiectomy vocalist, Tom Vysoký, lends his pipes to the Newborn Martyrdom, further solidifying the ongoing connection between the two bands; here you’ll find the album’s most prominent bass work and some of Vitriolic Baptism’s speediest riffs, but the real shocker is the atmospheric piano outro, which unsettles more than anything else here. The title track itself is a snorting beast of a tune, with a brutal mid-section, choppy riffing and huge breakdown.
All the elements we want from a slammingly brutal death metal record are here: mid-tempo rhythms, breakdowns and plenty of palm-muted riffing, all delivered with a snarling, sneering vocal and inspired by Suffocation, Internal Bleeding et al, but giving the genre a new spin.
Vitriolic Baptism is half-an-hour of uncompromising, unrelenting stomps that makes you want to hit play again as soon as Carbonised Genesis comes to an end. It’s madness seems to be the only thing that makes sense these days.
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