Vastum should be news to no one at this point. The Bay Area’s infamous doomed-out death metal heathens have been destroying ear drums since 2009, wrecking havoc up and down the west Coast with their barbaric live sets, and releasing two of US-death metal’s most acclaimed records of the last five years: 2011’s merciless Carnal Law and 2013’s tenebrous Patricidal Lust, both released on cult Portland-based shape-shifting metal label 20 Buck Spin. Today we’re proud to announce that we’ve been given the honor to release the cassette version of their brand new album, the monstrous full-length opus Hole Below, thirty-eight minutes of punishing and diabolical old school death metal that are surely going to become one of the crowning achievements in 2015 death metal. Vastum were formed in San Francisco in 2009 by three members of death-crust heathens Acephalix: vocalist Dan Butler, bassist Luca Indrio and guitarist Kyle House. The lineup was completed by Leila Abdul-Rauf (of Hammers of Misfortune ,Saros and Amber Asylum) on second guitar, and R.D. Davies of Gehenna on drums.
Their blastbeat-less brand of slow and sludgy old school death metal became immediately recognizable and attracted much attention in the underground almost from the start. Initially similar in sound to Acephalix’s crusty death metal rudeness, Vastum soon started to morph and mutate into something completely new and different, until they had laid the foundation for what would be destined to become one of the Bay Area’s most infamous and barbaric death metal aesthetics, a place where ominous perversions, sinister morbidity and visions of violence wandered off into a hellish dirge of punishing death metal riffs and bone-crushing doom metal heaviness. Today Vastum’s lineup is completed by Shelby Lermo on guitars (ex-Apocryphon - replacing Kyle House) and Adam Perry on drums (replacing Davies), but their primitive and ruthless sound has remained untouched, if not even further steered towards the most vile possible heaviness and the most tormented form of complete aural disgust. Destined to be an absolute highlight in 2015 death metal Hole Below is an opus of mesmerizing violence and of fathomless heaviness, and a work which will surely captivate fans of Immolation, Incantation, Acephalix, Cruciamentum, Autopsy, Bolt Thrower, and Dead Congregation. Recorded by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios here in Oakland CA and mastered at Audiosiege Mastering Studios in Portland OR by Brad Boatright, Hole Below will be jointly released by Sentient Ruin and 20 Buck Spin on November 6th 2015, with the Portland label handling the LP, CD and digital version, and the cassette tape version being released by us. Read the full press release from Earsplit PR HERE.
VASTUM
Hole Below
1. Sodomitic Malevolence
2. Amniosis
3. In Sickness and In Death
4. Intrusions
5. Hole Below (A Dream of Ritual Abuse)
6.Empty Breast