Home › Music › Fifth Album From Oakland-Based Death Metal Quintet VASTUM, “Inward To Gethsemane” Now Streaming In Its Entirety

Fifth Album From Oakland-Based Death Metal Quintet VASTUM, “Inward To Gethsemane” Now Streaming In Its Entirety

By capitalchaostv on November 9, 2023 • ( 0 )

20 Buck Spin is now streaming Inward To Gethsemane, the horrific fifth album from Oakland-based death metal quintet VASTUM, ahead of its official worldwide unveiling this Friday.

Four years and one pandemic on from Orificial Purge, VASTUM, the longest running band on the 20 Buck Spin roster, offers up its fifth bludgeoning document of psychic malaise and lost faith with Inward To Gethsemane. As before, the abject disgust unsparingly captured in VASTUM’s unique approach continues to drape the music with an aura of discomfiting unease.

The cavernous density that VASTUM has made a core element of its discography remains as inhuman as ever, continuing to delve into darker atmospheres, yet never devolving into ambient murk; on the contrary it’s always punishing and with a fearsome momentum. The distinctively harrowing dual lyrical/vocal attack of Daniel Butler and Leila Abdul-Rauf appears throughout Inward To Gethsemane; the possessed narrators of the band’s hellish underworld. Eight-minute album closer “Corpus Fractum” manifests a transformative and even experimental side of VASTUM musically and vocally, while sustaining the characteristic merciless power the band is revered for across its five albums.

Between the sporadic but legendary live performances and a worshipped discography of modern era true death metal with five albums in twelve years all released through 20 Buck Spin, VASTUM has become a torchbearer of the grisly and grotesque underground, both within its native Bay Area and well beyond. Inward To Gethsemane carves another notch in the band’s totem of deviance.

Inward To Gethsemane was mixed and recorded by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios (Acephalix, Ulthar, Necrot), mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege (Obituary, Mournful Congregation, Creeping Death), with artwork once again by vocalist Daniel Butler, photography by Chris Johnston, and layout by Dan Fried. All who endure the hammering ways of Bolt Thrower, Undergang, Autopsy, Necrot, Phrenelith, Mortuous, Coffins, Dead Congregation, Grave, and Demigod, do not miss VASTUM’s Inward To Gethsemane.