When I first saw we’d received promo from a band named Wömit Angel, I assumed one of our staff had playfully misspelled Vomit Angel, which confused me because I already reviewed a pretty terrible album by that band earlier this year. But no, it turns out Wömit Angel is an entirely different group, a Finnish black metal trio who also happen to be inspired by the expulsion of partially digested food from one’s stomach. Given they formed in 2010 and apparently harbor both punk and thrash influences, I’m pretty surprised I haven’t heard of these guys given my proclivity for seeking out this sort of thing.1 Under Sadistic Pressure is the group’s fourth album and promises to be a “pummeling assault” that spews forth plenty of “blasphemous putridity,” but I think the end result makes me more inclined to wrinkle my nose than bang my head.
Upon pushing play and letting loose the Sadistic Pressure, it becomes immediately apparent that Wömit’s biggest influence is Impaled Nazarene.2 Songs like “Slaughterburster”3 and opener “Religious Latex Suffocate” show Wömit have the same extreme and sadomasochistic humor as their Finnish brethren, along with the same irate, simple, and vaguely punky black metal stylings that made albums like Suomi Finland Perkele such a raging good time. This is music of hammering blast beasts and garbled vocals, music of fiery and basic chords that put anger and extremity far above nuance and variety. This style could feasibly work, but it turns out both of the above tracks end up sounding like filler songs from an Impaled Nazarene album, with only “Slaughterburster” adding a bit of intrigue with its slow and demented ending.
The remaining eight tracks do little to improve things. The biggest issue is that, ostensibly in the name of extremity, the production is explosive and overbearing. Though the dynamic range isn’t that low, the sound here still feels very loud, occasionally making it hard to follow the often relentless music. It doesn’t help that most of the riffs are awfully simplistic, with chord progressions sounding frantic and aggressive but hardly ever coalescing into something with true character or memorability. Third track “Paindomain,” for example, simply pounds along like its predecessors without much interesting going on, while later track “Flesh Necrotic Lunacy” sounds so similar to other songs that, if it weren’t for the fact that it has a different runtime than every other track, I would think was actually a rehash of an earlier song. Even something like “Doom to the Known World,” which sounds a bit different with its stomping and grandiose riffs, doesn’t quite work when it ends after just 72 seconds.
A few moments later in the runtime salvage things a bit. The main riff of “Sadocommand” has a little more attitude and swagger than anything else here, ultimately resulting in a song that’s at least decent and has a smidge of memorability. “Ominous Bloodletting Ritual” has a slightly more melodic main riff that offers a decent bit of variety later in the runtime, while the closing title track is a stomping death march that features some churning rhythms and at least has a different feel than everything else. Unfortunately, even though the album is just 30 minutes long, variety is severely lacking and I can’t shake the feel that many of these songs would be filler tracks on a superior album.
Wömit Angel sound pissed off, extreme, and even a little thrashy at times, but (contrary to popular belief) that isn’t enough to make me enjoy their music. Under Sadistic Pressure is like a bulldozer plowing into one’s eardrums, and thus those seeking sheer extremity may enjoy it more than myself. Those seeking interesting songwriting and riffs, however, best look elsewhere. The variety here is low, the explosive production makes it hard to listen to, and the unimaginative riffing is the final dry-heave that makes me excuse myself from the table. I feel untrve for giving this score and think Wömit still have the potential to produce something better in the future, but ultimately this isn’t something I’d want to listen to again nor recommend to anyone else. But hey, at least it’s better than Vomit Angel.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Reaper Metal Productions | Bandcamp
Website: facebook.com/womitangel
Releases Worldwide: October 1st, 2019
