Vitriol – Suffer & Become

Written by on 03-02-2024 at 09:21.

No pain, no gain. Without suffering there is no growth. Suffer & Become. It is the title of the second full length by the American band Vitriol. This title has real meaning because Vitriol was struggling. Or to be more accurate: they haven’t made it easy on themselves. The band describes that the process to create this new product did not come without a fight. Vitriol has pushed themselves to, and probably also beyond, the limits of what is still mentally healthy to produce a worthy successor to the previously very well received To Bathe From The Throat Of Cowardice, which was released in 2019. Perfectionism is a bitch. At that time there was talk of a new sensation and that resulted in a tour in Europe (including the Netherlands) with Nile and Hate Eternal. But these men succeeded and the new album has reached the shelves in January. In the meantime, I am very curious to see what the aforementioned ordeal has yielded and whether it can match the excellent debut, which colleague Remco discussed.

The album starts with an intro that really makes you pause. What an ominous start. You imagine yourself to be in the middle of a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock thriller mixed with the hysteria of the mad Jack Nicholson in The Shining, set in a similar sanatorium that was so graphically described by colleague Patrick Verhoeven in his review of HWWAUOCH. The notes played on guitar by Kyle Rasmussen seem aimed at picking up every nerve in your body separately and releasing it with a whiplash. It is a prelude to a crazy continuation of the song with raging drums and (bass) guitars that flow into a fantastic piece of solo work about two thirds of the way where a smile may actually appear on your face until the brutal finale arrives and you are left stunned.

On the new album Suffer & Become, Vitriol will (in ten songs) try to torture you where possible. The pain and suffering can be clearly heard from the first song as described above and further in the sometimes emotionally charged riffs that feel like a thousands of tormented souls screaming from the devilish depths of the netherworld. There’s the pain caused by the relentless drum bursts that are fired at you like machine guns. Let us not leave unmentioned the vocals that complete the suffering like salt on the wounds. I can now also vividly imagine that you as a listener are somewhat scared. Fear not! With the perfectionist but therefore difficult approach to writing this album, Vitriol has chosen to build in some points of light and tranquility in order to give a positive spin to the almighty wall of sound that is fired at you. Not that it will be an evening of easy listening, but listen to the sensitive intro of the fifth song, for example, Survival Careening Inertia and the aforementioned solo work in the first song. Bright spots that, according to Kyle Carpenter, were not present enough on the debut making that album as a whole a little too depressing. It is now up to the listener to experience the pain and experience the beauty of growth. When the growth has reached full maturity you will discover this has become an incredibly good record!

The album distinguishes itself by the high degree of musical technical ingenuity and the very good songs. It is heavy, very heavy, but at the same time it has feeling. These are the bright spots built into the band, as mentioned earlier. Initially there is the pain caused because Vitriol tries to skillfully tear your eardrums to smithereens with a sonic explosion of violence and then there is the beautiful butterfly that has emerged in the form of Suffer & Become. With the caveat, referring to Remco’s closing words in the aforementioned review, that it is all a bit much musically, this is material for end-of-year lists if this is your style.

Score:

85/100

Label:

Century Media, 2024

Tracklisting:

  1. Shame And Its Afterbirth
  2. The Flowers Of Sadism
  3. Nursing From The Mother Wound
  4. The Isolating Lie Of Learning Another
  5. Survival’s Careening Inertia
  6. Weaponized Loss
  7. Flood of Predation
  8. Locked In Thine Frothing Wisdom
  9. I Am Every Enemy
  10. He Will Fight Savagely

Line-up:

  • Kyle Rasmussen – Vocals, guitar
  • Adam Roethlisberger – Vocals, bass guitar
  • Matt Kilner – Drums
  • Stephen Ellis – Guitar

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