Richmond, Virginia is a city known mostly for its slowed down and more drug-fueled metal than anything else, a doom Mecca for those in the lower east coast whose record collections bulge around Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard more than anywhere else. Which makes a band like Vorator all the more surprising and refreshing. Not to take anything away from our fair city’s doom scene but every once in a while you have a craving for something different, something filthy, something that feels like it was written in the early 1990s. Vorator satisfies that craving.
Birthed only four years ago by guitarist Harrison Steel (whose metal as fuck last name is only matched by his metal as fuck tastes and deep knowledge of pretty much anything worth listening to, especially when he’s kind enough to drive his drunken mess of a friend home after too many at the bar) and drummer Leland Hoth with the intent to create harsh metal in the Teutonic style with an obvious flare for old school death metal. Vorator succeeds at their mission both on recording and with their vicious live performances. Think Sodom/Kreator at the era it was OK to wear shoes that looked like marshmallows mixed with old Necrophagia and Bolt Thrower (War Master era) and you’ll get the idea.
We present to you, my good and well-mannered friends, Vorator’s second full length, Italic Raids, which will be released October 29th by Australopithecus Records on a single sided 12 inch. You can either grab it from the label’s website or, if you’re lucky enough, snag it directly from the band’s merch table at their show on said date with thrash legends Morbid Saint in our nation’s capital. The band also have recently remastered their first recording Extermination March which can be heard on their Bandcamp.
orator have kept it pretty close to their home base over the last few years but after this record circulates I highly doubt that’s going to be the case. Like I said earlier, they’re a beast live. Last summer I saw them outside underneath the i95 bridge and they outplayed most bands who are hitting large venues on nostalgia tours that people seem fine paying $45 for. In an age of said nostalgia and gimmickry, bands like Vorator are a good cure for what ails you.
If you can’t make the release show or you just don’t want to wait, you can preorder Italic Raids through Australopithecus Records here.
