Vomiturition - A Leftover (1995)

Vomiturition's only full-length album was a great payoff from the previous EPs, which were improving in quality, but nowhere quite near this level. While we heard a lot of Florida influence in the earlier material, A Leftover casts a wider net, bringing in a few influences form their fellow Finns and also the Swedish scene. Interestingly, the latter comes more through a sense of composition rather than the ripping Stockholm guitar tone that has remained so trendy over the decades. I can hear a little Dismember at times, but moreover this earns some comparisons to Seance's Fornever Laid to Rest, another European death album which cultivated a clear American influence. There are even some simple, grinding D-beat like rhythms, or death & roll parts to balance out the more technical or progressive components here.

The drumming here is pure thunder, so much going on at times that it can even come off a fraction messy, but it's clearly the beating heart of the material and gives it so much of its fiery impulse. The rhythm guitar is nice and pungent and dense, quite similar to the Head Tales EP, and the guttural vocals have a tone to them which works either as a gruesome guttural or a more raucous bark. The songs themselves are like a potpourri of death metal niches from the world over, sometimes shuffling and dark and progressive, others rocking your face off like a jam between Napalm Death and Wolverine Blues. It might not create its own unique Finnish death metal language like Nespithe or North From Here, but there's just so much happening that it builds Vomiturition into its own little corner of the Finnish scene. While not always catchy, it's always busy, and you can't quite tell what will arrive around any of the riff's corners, making for a fun listen in the mid-90s, and thanks to the potent production this one is still entertaining to listen through today.

The cover art is obviously an improvement, and though there are 12 tracks, they keep it manageable at under 40 minutes. A Leftover is an easy recommendation because it sounds so fresh, and manages to pack together those elements of OSDM, grind, groove, and so forth into something that feels wholly coherent to its gloomy confines. But when I say 'gloomy', I don't mean it's necessary dull or dour, there is an inescapable energy to its design which is constantly rowdy and violent yet dark and oblique. This was yet another gem in the crown of that beloved, obsolete Invasion Records imprint, and a band that would have had plenty of potential moving forward, with this many tools in their torture chamber.

Verdict: Win [8/10]