Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
From Chelyabinsk, Russia comes the two-man entity VONNEGUT and the newly-released ‘Spurious Mourners‘ EP.
The duo at work here – vocalist Alex Bartholomew and multi-instrumentalist Pavel Kryukov – is now a trio! With the addition of Konstantin Ogarov on bass, they create horrifically heavy, intensely extreme, death metal. Much like their inspirational namesake, their music is dark and contains severe elements. This is blatantly evident on the three-song ‘Spurious Mourners‘, the follow-up to 2016’s ‘Incanceration’ EP.
Here, things launch with the furious pummeling of the introductory number, “War Of Hypocrites“, and its incredible double-pedal drum barrage. Constant and precise, those rapid-fire concussions drive the song’s advance, while the riffs chug right along with them. I especially dig Bartholomew’s vocals here, acidic and black metallish in style, imagine Martin Van Drunen (Asphyx, Comecon) meets Obituary’s John Tardy.
Things really hit their stride with the second cut, the “Spurious Mourners” title track. A bit less accelerated than its predecessor, yet no less lethal; a persistent pulse of technical guitars and those piston-firing drums are impossible to discount. They propel us through a multitude of increasingly speedier tempos and time signatures, the result is another remarkable track, too.
The last song is a cover of Slay My Sanity’s “Frozen To Life“, a great number to begin with that is given quite the enhancing here. Now more epic in scope, with touches of almost symphonic flare, this instrumental’s weaving of progressive metal music with a taut, talented execution is simply fantastic.
It is quite cool that VONNEGUT has returned at this time, by means of the ‘Spurious Mourners‘ EP. It’s a breath of invigorating, fresh metallic air – albeit a brief one – but revitalizing nonetheless. Enjoy our stream of it in our review here or jump over to Bandcamp where you can stream/purchase it at this LINK.
