Vacuous waste no time drawing the listener in on In His Blood with the title track starting off with a frenzied salvo of speed, darkness, and terror. The lower end echoes of the Autopsy/Abscess brutality but the tempo tells a different story, one of eagerness and explosion. Vacuous remain hard to pin down on In His Blood, as they move around the tempo spectrum quite a bit, using whatever style is needed to get the job done. But no matter the pace, the darkness prevails, and the album is definitely noteworthy for its low tones. And, despite being heavy, fast, and low, the band manages to avoid the mire and let their production get muddy, allowing the crispy, distorted notes to ring free and creep deep into one's mind. Heaviness aside, Vacuous don't put forth an all out death metal assault, rather, they experiment and pull from other genres, mingling them with their brand of death, and furthering the album's reach. For example, "Hunger" has a quite interesting structure, with quiet moments interspersed as the band "[imagined] what it would sound like if The Cure made a Death Metal song." And "Immersion" is basically a hardcore song with death flourishes in the punk riff, which definitely works well, differing quite a bit from grindcore (which given the description is how I would have pictured it). All in all, In His Dreams runs the gamut of heavy sounds, but always sticks true to its common core, and each new approach is done with aplomb, vigor, and attention to the overall album.

 

Having formed only five years ago, Vacuous have put out an album that feels like it came from a longer established band. Their song writing, arrangement, and production are all top notch and there is an excitement lurking beneath the heavy, dark textures on the record. While sonically it is dark and brooding, this excitement lends to an energetic explosion that shines through the heaviness directly into the listener's mind. Not to say it's cheerful, but one can tell how much this album means to the band and the expression felt by playing it. Getting this brightness out through such dark material is very impressive and I hope that future releases by the band have the same fervor.