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VATICINAL RITES
Cascading Memories Of Immortality

Everlasting Spew (2024)
Rating: 8/10

After a solid start in 2021 with their self-titled debut EP, London, England-based death metal throng Vaticinal Rites finally embarks on a full-length. Of all the UK acts within the genre doing the rounds these guys are one of the more overlooked, but after giving this outing several spins I’m sure the rave reviews and accolades will flood in.

If you like death metal in the vein of Monstrosity then you’ll enjoy what’s on offer here. Cascading Memories Of Immortality features nine songs with a tidy duration of 35 minutes and not an ounce of fat in sight. The vocal barks of Marcus Broome are not putrid, but more basic coughs befitting of any mid-90s band within the genre. The band sounds relatively clean and precise when compared to a lot of the boggy and soggy acts doing the rounds.

There is a lot of organic energy here as the quartet unleashes some devastating blasts, but where the band really shines is with those gargantuan steady pulses as showcased on opener ‘Foiled Skirmish’ alongside the colossal ‘Bowels Of Gargantua’. In certain passages throughout the band channels a Morbid Angel-style, but more so with the perverse barrage of riffs, lethal bellows and maniacal solos as exhibited on ‘Siphoning Plasma From The Gods’. ‘Corporeal Affliction’ is another favourite due to its doom-laden grinding.

Vaticinal Rites provide dense walls of black riffs that crush the listener into an unrecognisable pulp. There’s nothing necessarily out of the ordinary, but such is the weight of songs like ‘Asphyxiation Of Ecstasy’ and ‘Unhinged Cataclysm’ which veer into Dead Congregation and Vital Remains territory. Die-hard death metal fanatics of the old school persuasion will adore the nods towards the early 90s which were also evident on previous releases. Cascading Memories Of Immortality is the natural next step for the band, so allow yourself to be swept up by its foaming tides.

Neil Arnold

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