Artist: Imprecation
Country: USA
Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions
Formats: 12″ EP / CD EP
Year: 2025
In my recent musings on Teitanblood’s latest album, I already addressed the fact that there are levels in everything. There might be hundreds of bands doing similar things, but there’s simply just one Teitanblood. With Imprecation, I have more or less the same sort of feeling. The band is not offering anything remotely renewing or original, nor were they one of the first in their game, still Imprecation are undoubtedly up there at the top of the food chain when it comes to well-played and trend-crushing Death Metal.
Imprecation existed between 1991 and 1998, but besides delivering a few cultish demos and a 7” EP the band never were able to cash in on their underground fame with a full-length album. But evil kept lingering and eventually the band returned in 2009 and while the band is now back at the front for some good fifteen years already, with lots of great recordings under their collective belts, one conclusion prevails: Imprecation never repeats themselves. ‘Vomitum Tempestas’ is the band’s latest offering, a 7-song EP clocking in just under half an hour, and shows how well-rounded Imprecation is as a band. With apparent ease, these Texans once again string together one stunner after another.
Every preceding recording has its own identity and significantly differs from the rest, but Imprecation still knows to be thoroughly recognizable. The tradition of evil Death Metal, bearing an evident Black Metal edge to it is also evidently present on ‘Vomitum Tempestas’. Yet, in that same tradition, we are again presented with a slightly different version of the band. Albeit, the shifting in style is slightly less stunning than it was between ‘Damnatio Ad Bestias’ and the last full-length album ‘In Nomine Diaboli’. So, in a way, ‘Vomitum Tempestas’ feels much more like a logical continuation from where the band had left off before.
Still, the careful observer or the avid follower of the band will recognize an even firmer rooting in occult and evil Death Metal, again leaving the extremely heavy and crushing sound of ‘Damnatio Ad Bestias’ a bit more behind. The band has always been built upon the cornerstones of old school but sophisticated Death Metal from the likes of Morbid Angel and Immolation. The intricate riffs, the finesse of the tempo changes and the delicate use of keyboards, they all contribute to what makes Imprecation such a special band: the atmosphere. The brooding ambiance, almost Death/Doom Metal-like is the glue that ties this EP together, just as it did on previous records. It is smothering, but without indulging in unnecessary plastered walls of sound, Imprecation was and will always be about riffs, riffs and riffs. The strong song writing binds everything together and is the ultimate proof of Imprecation’s unfailing quality.
Remember those days in which basically every Death Metal band had a distinct sound of their own? Although all being filed under the Death Metal label, nobody would argue Gorefest, Malevolent Creation, Cannibal Corpse and Unleashed sounded the same. Imprecation is more or less a window to those bygone days. Not only are they quite unique in contemporary Death Metal that is dominated by uninspired and downright dull mid-tempo snoozers, but the band captures a certain sense of nostalgia from a time in which Death Metal bands were still exciting and fresh. Listen to ‘Vomitum Tempestas’ and you will come to realize that 99% of today’s Death Metal scene is completely redundant.
