Album Review: Vitriol - Suffer & Become
Reviewed by Daniel Phipps
Portland Oregon’s death metal machine Vitriol released an absolute masterpiece of death metal perfection in 2019 with their debut full length release To Bathe From the Throat of Cowardice, everything about the album was flawless, from the song craft, aggression and execution I really could not find a point that I was anything less than perfect in my opinion. Now it's five years later and the band have a fresh collection of material titled Suffer & Become.
If you follow Vitriol on Instagram you will see that their handle is @vitriolwarfare and that is very fitting because warfare is exactly what you will be getting on Suffer & Become. It is a firm and utterly savage collection of ten tracks which pull exactly zero punches in the way they absolutely crush through its run length. Vitriol has added a lot of depth to these tracks and they sound really thick. The songs maintain a high level of raw intensity which is layered on top but behind those rage filled riffs, drums and duel vocals is a massive wall of sound and the tracks and each track is just monstrous.
During the midway point of Suffer & Become Vitriol provide a break if you will with “Survival’s Careering Inertia” whilst not being any less in ist heaviness this instrumental offering is a segway into the records second half which is even more savage than the first, with the intensity, anger and rage just flowing through and really hitting. What is extremely important with the rage aspect of this record is this rage does not sound fake. Let's be honest we all know bands who use rage as part of their sound but that rage is really more of an act, Vitriol really offers an honest display of this and the output is sheer audio violence.
I really had high hopes for this record and those hopes have been 100% met. You know the musical excellence that each member of Vitriol have and they have combined this into a second album of absolutely stellar technical, and vicious death metal. If you had any thoughts that the band couldn't offer a suitable follow up to their debut, Suffer & Become quashes those doubts.
