Album Details

• Artist: Gnaw Their Tongues
• Album: An Epiphanic Vomiting Of Blood
• Label: Burning World
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2008-06-27

Gnaw Their Tongues continue the Scandinavian tradition of nihilist bands both revel in and feign

disgust for all sorts of evil, and lay the blame equally on humanity and the demons that seem to

believe are real. Sometimes it makes for riveting, bludgeoning music, other times it is so lame

and horror-comic that you feel great about yourself: you may be fucked up, but at least you are

not walking around in corpse paint believing that Thor is on your side.

"An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood" straddles that line uneasily. The opening tune, "My Body is

Not a Vessel, Nor a Temple. It's a Repulsive Pile of Sickness," is alternately a leftover from

Sabbath's first record, and an outtake from the "Tales From The Darkside" theme song.

Atmospheric black metal, all keyboards and one chord, don't cut it. Things get a bit better on

"Teeth That Leer Like Open Graves," its sickening soundbites of the BTK killer are effective,

yet mixed with that operatic Metal keyboard that tries hard to be menacing. "Sawn Asunder and

Left for the  Beasts" often puts the guitar up in the mix, which helps, but is still ponderous.

Since the title track is one the best metal titles in years, I am happy to report that it is the best

track of the set, its dense wash of sound mixing guitar and keys into a seamless sonic blast that

approaches good noise. The next two tracks, "The Sewer Rats of Calcutta" and "And There Will

Be More of Your Children Dead Tomorrow "repeat the formula with lesser success, but help

redeem the record. It also helps that the closer, "The Urge to Participate in Butchery," is the

heaviest and least pompous of the set. Gnaw Their Tongues Out learned to go out on a high note.

Overall, "An Epiphanic Vomiting of Blood" is decent Black Metal, but nothing to gape for. Still,

it has its moments, and there is more than enough to build on, Loki-willing.

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