Worship Metal Album Of The Week – VLTIMAS – Something Wicked Marches In

Do you miss David Vincent-era Morbid Angel? You remember them, the band that ushered in death metals 90’s supremacy with the iconic Altars Of Madness and the genre-defining Blessed Are the Sick before Covenant and Domination attempted to court the mainstream as super-stardom seemingly beckoned. The band that David Vincent then exited for 9 years before rejoining in 2004 and going on to release one of the most divisive recorded ‘comeback’ albums in metal history, the much maligned Illud Divinum Insanus.

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you not only remember David Vincent’s time in Morbid Angel, you adore it and long for a return to those glory days – prior to Illud Divinum Insanus though, eh!

Well pine no longer, as former Mayhem man Blasphemer, Cryptopsy’s Flo Mounier and David Vincent himself have joined forces in VLTIMAS and delivered an album of supreme heaviness. Something Wicked Marches In is undoubtedly the album that should have followed Domination and is so authentically, overwhelmingly, satisfyingly perfect in every way that you can’t help but doff your cap to David Vincent for righting the wrongs of Illud Divinum Insanus and for making Morbid Angel’s Kingdoms Disdained sound like a complete waste of everyone’s time.

Combining flawlessly, it sounds as if these three extreme metal veterans have been collaborating for decades; such is the seamless manner in which they have unified their distinctive styles to form an impenetrable whole. Something Wicked Marches In isn’t just home to strong extreme metal songwriting, its housing the whole genre within its hallowed walls and these 9 magnificent manifestations of morbid malevolence are somehow so much more than the sum of their parts.

Too gushy? Perhaps, but we cannot stress enough just how much this album delivers in every department. The drumming is stunning throughout, as you’d expect. The riffs are powerful, sinewy one minute, pinning you to the wall the next, as you’d expect. The vocals are clear, aggressive and varied, as you’d expect. Not a foot is put wrong.

With Something Wicked Marches In, VLTIMAS have delivered total destruction by doing more than simply ‘marching in’. They’ve cheekily kicked death metal’s fuckin’ doors in and swanned off with its trophy cabinet!

Album of the year material? Too fucking right mate! 10/10