Vulvodynia from South Africa are one of the heavy hitters in the brutal death metal/deathcore scene and in their short 7 year existence, have garnered quite a nice following, as well as releasing 3 prior full lengths and ep’s.  Just like Korpse, Vulvodynia, were another free agent Unique Leader picked up and this year has been quite the year for this style of brutal music.  Other similar bands such as Abominable Putridity, Crown Magnetar and Traumatomy, have also put out crushing releases.  Vulvodynia’s fourth album Praenuntius Infiniti is a great follow-up to Mob Justice, from 2019, in fact this may be a little better.  The title track is an intro which coincides with the horror/sci-fy brutal cover of brutality and monstrous aliens.

“The Shadowy Descent of Gaia” starts immediately with ferocious blasts and a very interesting guitar sound with noises, pinch harmonics and all around-it’s ridiculously heavy.  The vocals of Duncan Bentley are super low and mixed in with screams.  The opening slam part with the jumpiness to the groove is sooooo catchy.  This part repeats again and it just makes you want to swing in the pit – non-stop.  “Eternal Wasteland of Galaxies” has monster blasts and pounding slam sections.  The double bass sound, has a mechanical Meshuggah style to it, during portions of this song and album.  Since I love that drum sound, it creates a bit of dissonance to the already over-the-top sound Vulvodynia presents.  This song even has some guitar soloing going on-which threw me for a loop.  This song would be a great live song, with the signature time changes and brutal slams.  There are a few slams which go on for a bit-would tucker the crowd off-so maybe save this song towards the end of the setlist.

“The War Within” has some cool opening pinch harmonics-then right into blasts, then pinch-harmonic stylized groove sections.  The sound is absolutely punishing and the fairly original guitar sound, as well as other weird noises the band ads in, are so vicious.  The slams definitely have that ‘corish edge to them, but Vulvodynia have more brutal death metal to them.  The 2.30 mark has some very cool bass plucking guitar moments, which would make Primus proud and this section is pretty killer, which also has progressive moments-I think I picked out some Cynic…

Praenuntius Infiniti is Vulvodynia’s finest release.  Vulvodynia are not reinventing the wheel in this genre of brutal slam/death metal.  They do however, offer some very cool guitar sounds, solos, brutality and some off-kilter song structures, which make them ahead of the pack of many other similar bands.  One of the cool things is this band is so over-the-top brutal, yet they still manage to craft catchy songs.  Several of these riffs are memorable and the band adding technical aspects with some serious guitar soloing over the blasts are pretty damn great.  This album is a lot of fun and I listen to it quite a lot, because there’s a lot going on.  Scorching brutality!

[Visit the band's website]

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