In any serious conversation about death metal the name Vomitory has to come up. Following their inception in 1989, between 1996 and 2011 they dropped eight of the most blistering albums the genre has spewed up, the quartet parting ways in 2013. However, the band's retirement turned out to be short lived, returning to stages in 2019 to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary, and now they drop their first new full-length in twelve years, the monstrous All Heads Are Gonna Roll. Boasting the classic Vomitory sound with a few new twists and turns, it is everything their faithful could have hoped for, the band having taken their time before committing to it rather than rushing in. "We weren't feeling any pressure, it was rather about making a decision whether we should continue as a band, i.e. release new material, or simply put the band back in the grave again," explains drummer Tobias Gustafsson. "We wrote a few songs first just for the fun of it, to see if we still 'had it', before we made the final decision to continue and make a new full-length album." With the decision made, writing began in earnest in August of 2021, all four members - drummer Tobias Gustafsson, guitarists Urban Gustafsson and Peter Ostlund, and vocalist/bassist Erik Rundqvist - excited to be working on new Vomitory material. Best described as "fast, grinding, D-beat, fist-in-your-face death metal", it features fresh aspects that are uncommon to Vomitory records. "One thing in particular we did was to try to build distinct choruses in the songs, which is something we didn't put too much effort into earlier," explains drummer Tobias Gustafsson. "We have also spent a lot more time working with the backing vocal arrangements, which we certainly think paid off very well. It brings something new to our sound. We have also tried to write more straightforward riffs, like we did in the early 2000s." While it is instantly recognizable as a Vomitory record there is still space for a song like "Raped, Strangled, Sodomized, Dead", which really stands out from the rest, the band having never done anything so catchy and melodic before. For the first time since their debut album they also had all the music and lyrics written prior to commencing recording, which certainly shows in the finished product, feeling very much fully realized. With a title they knew would resonate with metalheads and inspire great album artwork, All Heads Are Gonna Roll was also their mindset during writing sessions, "to keep it brutal and relentless", explains Erik Rundqvist, who wrote all the lyrics for the album. Lyrically they are coming from a familiar place, focusing on "violence, murder, war, gore, zombies, monsters, anti-religion etc," never having had an agenda or political influences, and drawing inspiration from movies, books and TV, the only remit being to make the songs as violent as possible. As such, the title track is about "a classic old school horror movie murderer, just getting in somewhere to kill as many people as possible. This time it happened to be a church. Maybe he's tired of the hypocrisy in there or just out for blood," while "Raped, Strangled, Sodomized, Dead" is inspired by a true crime program about the police finding a body that has been violated and thrown into a pond. Then there is the brutal "Dead Man Stalking", which tells the story of "a supernatural being that follows his victims before striking them down to build his new body of their skin, flesh and blood. But when he's done it's not what he expected. The body is rotten and vile, so he keeps killing to create a better body." The instruments for the record were tracked in the band's rehearsal space, on a mobile studio setup engineered by Mats Lindstr-m, and was self-produced. This allowed them to work at their own pace in the hours that worked for them, rather than having this dictated to them as would be the case if they had rented a studio. "Although we had a lot of flexibility to choose our working hours, it was still crucial to keep the recording schedule as strict as possible, because it was so easy to say 'let's do it tomorrow instead'." For vocals, they went to Leon Music Studios and engineer Rikard L-fgren, which was where they recorded their last three albums. The album was then mixed and mastered by Lawrence Mackrory at Rorysound Studios and in addition, a good friend Christian Fredriksson (Vulkan) was brought in to play some guitar solos to add an extra touch to their final work. With vivid horror movie-inspired artwork - with a hint of anti-religion thrown in for good measure - All Heads Are Gonna Roll really is the whole package for death metal fans, and a stunning return to form after so many years between releases.
