Ventflow Album Review -
Like taking a beating you not only asked for but elect to go back to for more, Ventflow’s debut album “Terrorsiah” will fuck you up, but in a good way, a very, very good way. From the initial blastbeats on album opener ‘I Live To Piss On Your Grave’ you quickly realise you’re in for an unsubtle barrage of pure, unadulterated metal, and what follows is a forty-five minute journey through a battered and bruised sonic landscape, dragging the listener kicking and screaming through the best parts of Bay Area thrash, Southern sludge and Floridian death.
If you force-fed someone Pantera, Lamb of God and Machine Head to the point where they projectile vomited the acidic bile back into your face you may come close to physically reproducing what these four Swindon lads have managed to achieve with a few instruments and one guy’s mangled vocals. Made up of ten tracks consisting of complex song structures and multiple tempo changes, “Terrorsiah” also features fast, highly distorted guitars lacing each song with unquestionably catchy Dimebag-esque riffs, underscored by guttural bass lines which occasionally come to the fore, repeating some delightfully threatening dissonance whilst always maintaining an intense and throbbing rhythm.
As for the drumming - holy shit! Barrett’s percussive artillery is precise and quick-as-shit, pummeling the senses with a punishing blend of fast and dynamic drum patterns and blastbeats that not only fortifies each song but compounds their ferocity. And I don’t know what Lee Brennan had for breakfast before going into the studio to record his vocal tracks, but it certainly wasn’t sitting well because the discomfort he channels could make your eyes bleed, summoning up the kind of shrieks and grunts most mere mortals could only muster after shoving their hand into a blender. Ranging from dog-like barks to cat-being-strangled howls and sounding like a primal scream gone wrong, he expertly spits out the kind of maniacally cathartic deluge of misery, disgust and rage that’d make John Tardy proud.
When a record is packed with the consistently good quality song writing, musicianship and unflinching heaviness as this one it’s difficult to pinpoint album highlights, but songs such as title track ‘Terrorsiah’, ‘Cast Down The Swine’ and ‘A New Age Of Violence’ perfectly encapsulate the barely-controlled venom and sheer brutality that make up this impressive debut.
From the get-go this album demands your attention, never releasing its chokehold until the last note has been played, leaving nothing but a trail of scorched earth and hopefully a few contented and smiling metalheads in its wake. Ironically uplifting as it rips your soul out of your body through every available orifice, this album will fuck you up good and proper.