Blast RItes: Vomi Noir – L’Innommable Remugle Et La M​é​lop​é​e Cavernuleuse Des R​â​les Agoniques Review

Somewhere towards the beginning of the long line of teachers who are disappointed in what I’ve done with my life, there’s one who attempted to teach me French, starting in my earliest school days. For eight years, she tried, and now, three decades after that, I can remember how to say “my name is…” and “please” and “thank you,” and almost nothing else…

And so, confronted with confounding French and reminded of my failure in spite of her best efforts, I turned to the all-knowing for a translation of this particular album title. According to Google, L’Innommable Remugle et la M​é​lop​é​e Cavernuleuse des R​â​les Agoniques apparently means… “The Unspeakable Remugle And The Cavernulous Melody Of The Agonic Rattles.”** I’m glad we cleared that up. Thank you, technology.

Despite the verbosity and the convoluted quasi-English that Google bestowed upon it, L’Innomable is neither a black metal album, nor a Demilich one, but instead, it’s the latest from gurgle-gore-grossout group Vomi Noir. As you’d expect from a band whose name translates to “black vomit” – and I did that translation myself, thank you – the sound is appropriately, well… vomitous. Laurent’s drum batterie pounds beneath the churning riffs, largely blasting and smashing, but finding spaces to rock and breathe in the bits between, as in “Scindé dans la Gangrenescence,” “Fulmineuse Infestation Plasmodiale,” and the near-trudging somewhat-doom intro of “Homunculus.” (Fear not, dedicated grinders, that slow-down is short-lived, and the back half of that particular track is a standout moment of chunky goregrind greatness.) Closing track “Inésthétique Moignon Génital” follows suit, alternating between a mid-tempo swing and a chopping blastbeat — that one’s a cover of a late-90s tune from fellow French grinders Cabal, translated back to French from its original titre en Anglais, “Unaesthetic Genital Stump.”

Pierre’s riffs are equally squalling and slicing, augmented by short bursts of dissonant, whammy-bar-heavy leads that bubble up from the depths below. Sometimes those come in the form of a quick, almost-Azagthoth-ian solo (like on the title track), and other times, they’re just a quick squeal or dive, but always, they serve to add color to Vomi Noir’s palette of blood-red and puke green and putrid rotten blacks. Pulling double duty as guitarist and vocalist, Pierre’s array of gurgles bounce from side to side, calls and responses, a barrage of guttural growls, pitchshifted lows, snarled barks.

In twenty one-minute-ish bursts of bilious blasting, L’Innommable Remugle et la M​é​lop​é​e Cavernuleuse des R​â​les Agoniques is a wonderfully disgusting little platter of puke splatter. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the Vomi Noir offerings I’ve unearthed thusfar in my journeys through the fetid wastelands of gory grinding — from their first album Les Myasmes de la D​é​liquescence to splits with Neuro-Visceral Exhumation, with Sick Sinus Syndrome, and more. So I was stoked when this one floated across my Bandcamp radar, and I’m happy to report that L’Innommable is handily my most favoritest black vomit yet.

Je M’appelle, Andrew: Keep the vomit coming, Vomi Noir monsieurs, s’il vous plait et merci…

** Further tweaking of Google Translate brought me to this: The Unspeakable Moldiness And The Cavernous Melody Of The Deathrattles, which is, at least, better. French speakers, by all means, feel free to do it properly here – I joke about the title only because Google is silly, and certainly mean no disrespect here to the record or to the band, both of which are seriously kick-ass and absolutely worthy for anyone with even a passing interest in the gurgly and grimy.