[Photo Credit: Ben Price]
The extreme metal authorities at No Clean Singing are currently hosting an exclusive stream of Nostalgic Predictions, the debut album from Baltimore, Maryland-based black/death metal outfit VERMÖRD. The stream precedes the independent release of the album this Friday.
Crafting intense, epic, ominous, music, VERMÖRD’s aggressive approach is more realized than ever on Nostalgic Predictions. With rapid drumming and tremolo-picked riffs backed with occasional chugging chords, the band infuses components of sinister death metal into a wholly blackened aura, with technical and progressive tendencies and melodic elements instilled throughout, noting Necrophagist, Emperor, Decapitated, and Dark Funeral as reference points.
Nostalgic Predictions delivers thirteen tracks in just under an hour of playing time, the record was recorded by the band, then mixed and mastered by Noel Mueller at Grimoire Records and completed with cover artwork by Matt Lawrence.
VERMÖRD’s Zak Kempler discloses about Nostalgic Predictions, “This album is a cumulation of the few songs written shortly after the EP, but the majority of the songs are from a hiatus time for the band. It is a reflection during a time of many changes. The album features ‘nostalgic’ songs for us that were never released, as well as a few extra writings that we wanted to feature.”
Within their detailed review accompanying the advance stream of the record, No Clean Singing writes in part, “…while the music at its core is a fast-turning kaleidoscope of sound that’s geared toward causing your heart to race and the top of your head to blow off, VERMÖRD somehow also manage to lace the songs with mood-changing melodies (often dissonant and discordant ones) that create varying sensations of sinister menace, macabre horror, blistering cruelty, brutal desperation, mesmerizing mystery, and unbounded ecstasy… there’s no real relent in this musical flash-flood. Perhaps paradoxically, it’s the sheer adventurous explosiveness of each track, one after the other, that keeps attention riveted rather than exhausted.”
VERMÖRD’s Nostalgic Predictions is streaming courtesy of No Clean Singing now at THIS LOCATION
Nostalgic Predictions will see independent release digitally and on CD this Friday, April 8th. Order HERE
Formed in 2014, VERMÖRD recorded their first EP, Dawn Of The Black Harvest, in 2015 with Grimoire Records, the record surrounded by two demos. The EP was met with solid critical acclaim by a wide array of metal outlets, and the band had already coalesced into the local metal scene, playing regularly around the Baltimore area. After winning a local Battle Of The Bands contest for an opening slot for the Summer Slaughter Tour of 2016, their fanbase grew exponentially as a result. The band went through a hiatus from 2017-2020, where there were lineup changes, and no new recording or live activity took place, however, new music was still being written. In 2021, the revamped lineup began recording all the songs they had crafted in this period, which became their first full-length, Nostalgic Predictions.