Vore – Maleficus
I wish I were more familiar with Vore’s back catalog for the purpose of this review. I have a hunch that “Maleficus” is a giant leap forward for this band, but without any knowledge of their past efforts “Dead Kings Eyes” and “Lord of Storms” I cannot be certain. I have heard that those past efforts were decent, but a bit too simplistic and slow to really hold the attention of seasoned metal veterans for any real length of time. While “Maleficus” could also be described as somewhat simplistic and mostly mid paced, the music is so well written, arranged and executed that I do not find it to be boring at all. In fact, Vore remind me a bit musically of Canada’s Necronomicon, another somewhat overlooked band who play fairly basic yet solid and well-written death metal. Of the eight new tracks presented here, seven of them plod on spreading heavy doses of death, doom and darkness that are sure to get your old school black converse high tops tapping along to the double bass. There are also occasional solos that you can wail away on your air guitar to. The noticeable exception would be track six, titled “Ashes”, which is a two-minute acoustic instrumental that bleeds into the following track titled “Wrath Wrought Ruin” rather nicely. This disc was definitely a refreshing surprise arriving at a time when cramming as many notes and riffs as possible into one song and seeing how many blast beats per minute that your drummer can maintain throughout the course of an album seem to be all the rage. – Lance Rogers
FROZEN SOLID
Worm Gear 