Death metal’s primary function is, or perhaps should be, to whip the listener into a good old-fashioned frenzy with riffs aplenty. On Longing Voracity, their sophomore effort, Germany’s Teratoma zealously commit to and meet this core purpose.
There’s something embedded in Teratoma’s approach that feels hypernatural. As a listener, your inclination may be—and I know mine was—to frame Longing Voracity initially in terms of what it is not. It is not clinical. It is not overproduced. It is not grandiose or overly complex. Longing Voracity is, instead, refreshingly direct, rich in the few elements that make great death metal, well, great. Principally, I enjoy this one the same way I enjoyed the more recent Witch Vomit records. Or Tomb Mold’s Planetary Clairvoyance. Or the last Hyperdontia record. Simply put, it crushes.
Longing Voracity’s richness really comes from the distillation of those few elements into nine tightly written songs—songs that are largely devoid of the sort of excess that tends to drag lesser albums. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the first song (after the intro track) is about four and a half minutes of dense, melodic, and punishing hypnotism.
There’s a purpose, an ethos, in the above-mentioned hypnotism that weaves its way through most of Longing Voracity. That uniformity of purpose—mostly to crush you into an intense state of hypnosis (see, e.g., “Chaotic Bewilderment”)—belies what is at its core a notably diverse death metal album with well-defined and distinguishable songs, searing leads, and a bulldozing pace. In that sense, the aforementioned “Chaotic Bewilderment,” “Festering Realm,” and the title track are emblematic of the Teratoma’s approach here.
Though they may not be the first to make the statement, Teratoma certainly prove with Longing Voracity that new OSDM doesn’t have to be purely reverential to succeed. Sure, there’s an eclectic mix of the elements you’d otherwise find in most OSDM—gutturals, doomier riffs, a generally murky atmosphere and raw production—but the album sits somewhere between Swedish, Finnish, and American tendencies, played by musicians who bring their own individual influences to the table, some of them more modern than others.
Of all the metals, death metal presently sits somewhere near the top, if not at the very top, of the heavy metal hierarchy. And we are direct beneficiaries of its excesses. That in this bountiful period of death metal riches Teratoma’s Longing Voracity stands out amongst its peers is not only commendable but something close to a miracle.
