Vitriol - "Suffer & Become" (2024)

[MacabreEternal]

Portland’s Vitriol may have adopted a band name that instantly screams deathcore or metalcore at least, but a listen to any of Suffer & Become and you will soon find that they something else altogether.  This album is a dense and chaotic explosion of death metal; probably the best modern death metal I have heard this year outside of the mighty Ulcerate.  Make no mistake, there is A LOT going on here.  The multitude of parts that layer Suffer & Become take some digestion most certainly (here, multiple listens are needed folks) and at times I do find myself looking for space to breath and absorb this raging torrent of death metal.

Clearly put together by accomplished artists, the contributors to this album come from a varied palate of metal experience.  The drums from a brutal death metal background, the guitars are more deathcore (yet Steve Jansson of epic doom outfit, Crypt Sermon fame guests on track three) with supremo Kyle Rasmussen showing his agility on leads and riffs alike.  That is not to say that the experience of the riffs on the album is them being deathcore sounding.  Whilst there most certainly is a hint of it somewhere, as a band Vitriol have a huge amount of Hate Eternal influence here alongside the grindcore sounding aspects of Cattle Decapitation (thankfully minus the horrible vocals of the latter band).  With nods to Nile, Morbid Angel and Cryptopsy, the group allow a healthy platform of death metal staples to shape Suffer & Become.  The solo work is some of the best I have heard in a long time.  I have lost count of how many death metal albums I have heard over the last five years alone that are sadly redundant in the lead work department.  Rasmussen and Ellis are fucking beasts though.  Think Morbid Angel at their Altars… or Blessed… best (minus a lot of the swarming chaos) and you are on the right track.

Confidence feels high on this record and the inclusion of an instrumental track in the exact middle of the record shows this.  In an otherwise manic riffest of a record, some clean strings are quite striking in their arrival, especially given their off-kilter tuning.  This track too ends up a nefarious mass of riffs which introduces the second (and for me better) half of the record.

For the front end of the album, Vitriol appears to be setting pace only.  From Weaponized Loss onwards is where they truly hit their stride, however.  This track is the first one where the chaos gets some order applied to it, some discernible structure alongside those diving, blackened melodies that works to a truly overwhelming effect.  As the backend of the album continues, tracks seem to grow in stature; that earlier confidence seemingly taking on new heights of assurance making this part of the album the domineering force.  In some regards, this gift could be considered a curse as if the whole of the album matched the virility of the last five tracks, then we would have a real contender for album of the year here.  As it happens the first half of the record feels unfulfilled by way of comparison.

The clear highlights of the record for me are the final two tracks.  Both, I Am Every Enemy and He Will Fight Savagely see the band finally pull all that potential promised on Weaponized Loss and hone into perfect death metal music.  Bearing in mind that this is their sophomore release, the potential for Vitriol to grow into a modern death metal behemoth feels tangible and wholly realistic.  If they can maintain a stable line up then these guys could well be unstoppable come album number three.