With a name like Vicar Blood, you’d rightly expect a band to be obscenely heavy and confrontational. And the Ohio quintet doesn’t disappoint, serving up a vicious death metal sound laden with chugging guitars, driving drums and violent vocals.
The Cleveland band began with guitarist Dan Gates and vocalist Vieda Boss teaming up to do a duet on Instagram and TikTok. From there, they drafted in Luis Ortondo, who leads the way with some superbly intense action on the drum kit, Will Bolduc and Steve Fernandez to form a formidable death metal lineup.
And on the sound they’ve crafted since, the band says: “Vicar Blood aims to mix brutality, powerful melodies, lots of chugs and explosive vocals with the heaviness of crushing, brutal guitar riffs influenced by classic death metal bands.”
Our latest taste of this is When War Comes, which was released earlier this month. It opens up with a building guitar sound that drops into Vieda’s intense guttural vocals and a chugging riff, with increasingly powerful drums ploughing along. It continues into impressively vicious throaty vocals in a heavy chorus, giving way to a verse supported by a cool riff and huge double bass drum action. The pace slows with moody guitars and some slightly terrifying growls, before the big drums return under intense vocals. The drums drop out as a fast-paced riff kicks in, then return in dramatic style with huge rolling drums under vicious growled vocals, before the pace slows into a dark conclusion.
On the track, the band told us: “The reception for When War Comes has been excellent! We’ve definitely turned some heads with this song for sure!”
That’s the latest in a series of singles since the release of debut track By The Wayside in February. That includes the massive Resist, which packs plenty of death metal power and intensity with big driving riffs and more of that sweet double bass drum action, and the insanely intense Sanctified.
More recently, they released Destruction, which very much lives up to its name in a brutal four-and-a-half minutes of exceptionally vicious guttural vocals, wild riffs and blastbeat drums, including a wild instrumental section around three minutes in.
The Vicar Blood sound has been inspired by the likes of Suffocation, Dying Fetus, Amon Amarth, Sanguisugabogg, Cryptopsy, Malevolent Creation and Slaughter To Prevail.
Vicar Blood has even more singles ready to release ahead of dropping their debut album next year, which they’re starting work on in the next couple of months. They’re also hoping to expand beyond the midwest, and we think their intensely brutal style will surely allow that dream to happen.
You can follow Vicar Blood on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
Listen to Vicar Blood and more new metal on our Spotify playlists GigRadar Core and GigRadar Metal
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