The milk is a tad bittersweet. Vorum have achieved that which they set out to do: create blasphemous death/black metal. For one, I'm glad they changed their name from Haudankaivaja. Despite obviously being more marketable Vorum sounds like an amphibious muck-creature that swallows it's prey whole. Or maybe it sounds like the twisted, gluttony-fueled opposite of a vomitorium. It certainly sounds more direct and more evil than Finnish for "Gravedigger" either way.
Poisoned Void is a riff-heavy construct as it should be. Guitars spit out fast phrases that are often repeated many times, chromatic, and at the best of times addicting. Harmonic tremolo riffs and the occasional solo carry memorable melodies that soar over the murk of the underlying rhythm. "Rabid Blood" is full of them and is one of the stronger tracks on the album for that reason. The occasional d-beat pops up on Poisoned Void, always bringing you back into the album when you start to lose interest which admittedly happened to me at a few points. The tracks do have a bit of variety to them though, which is something I always find lacking on revival albums. "Thriving Darkness" and "Dance Of Heresy" for example begin heavily in the doom spectrum, and wouldn't sound out of place on a Slugathor release. The only track I couldn't properly enjoy was the closing title track which at seven minutes feels like it overstayed its welcome. The ideas are developed, but only there's only so much you can do with the style. It takes awhile to cut to the chase and the reward isn't that great.
The mixing and production are exactly what you should expect from this kind of music. The bass drum sounds legitimate, the riffs sound murky and properly distorted, and the driving melodies stand above it all. I can't stress how important that is for a band like this, and they achieve it perfectly.
You could easily point to their '90s influences in Convulse or especially Demigod, with a small dash of Purtenance as being components of their sound. This isn't a huge issue as the type of music Vorum have set out to create is exactly that. It's a revival take on an old style, and it might have just been what I was in the mood for tonight, but I don't know how I'll feel about it down the road.
7.25 out of 10
Tracklisting:
1. Impetious Fires
2. Death's Stains
3. Rabid Blood
4. Thriving Darkness
5. Evil Seed
6. In Obscurity Revealed
7. Dance Of heresy
8. Poisoned Void
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