Vastum – Inward to Gethsemane (Review)

This is the fifth album from Vastum, a death metal band from the US.

It’s a rather shocking ten years since I last heard Vastum, (2013’s Patricidal Lust), so getting reacquainted with the band’s music is long overdue. I’m glad I did, as Inward to Gethsemane is a monster.

Spread across 38 minutes of idiosyncratic death metal that’s an engaging fusion of styles and eras, Inward to Gethsemane immediately establishes its supremacy right from the start. It has a well-developed personality all of its own, and the entire album offers many treats for fans of quality death metal.

Sinuous aggression and grim menacing auras combine to produce malevolent songs that grip the listener with an iron claw. The well-crafted music is immersive in its worldbuilding. It delivers a mix of venomous heaviness and caustic hostility on one hand, and absorbing soundscapes of hideous depth and substance on the other. Vastum have clearly honed their art very well.

Dark atmospheres are effectively conjured up and sustained by the band’s grasp of macabre mood-building. The album is a brutal journey into masterfully forged death metal might, but rather than brutality, heaviness, and aggression existing as an end unto themselves, here they serve the greater good of the music; Vastum create songs that are designed to immerse the listener in an ocean of distorted, crushing, atmospheric malevolence.

Inward to Gethsemane is a superior death metal album. Taking elements from the old-school and the modern to produce something with a timeless feel, Vastum’s new album is an impressive and enjoyable beast.

Very highly recommended.