Review by Sonny for Vastum - Orificial Purge (2019)

Vastum are a band I'm coming to a bit late in the day and I have really been missing out. Modern death metal (with a few notable exceptions) usually leaves me underwhelmed, but these San Franciscans seem to have dropped out of a wormhole from the late 80s or early 90s with their loose, liberated style, the occasional tempo drop for a welcome doom death break and it's shunning of technicality, instead focussing on the crushing power of it's riffs to achieve the necessary levels of heaviness. One of, if not the, best death metal albums of the year.