The Vomit Arsonist — An Occasion For Death

Malignant Records presents An Occasion For Death by long-running power electronics, death industrial artist The Vomit Arsonist. Hailing from Rhode Island, The Vomit Arsonist is the moniker of Andrew Grant, also known for doing time in projects such as: Bereft, Thee Virginal Brides, and Nau-Zee-auN. While being familiar with the name for some time (often mentioned as one of the premiere U.S. industrial noise acts going), I admittedly haven’t delved too deeply into the project’s output. That said, I was rather looking forward to deflowering my ears, with The Vomit Arsonist’s 13th full-length.

An Occasion For Death offers 7 tracks of dark industrial noise, where dense drones collide with loops, doomy synth, metal abuse, and scathing vocals. The album opens up with “Think God Out Of Existence” made up of an extended sample of a deep-voiced man musing on the how only by erasing God can we truly take responsibility over our own lives. The sample is paired with a chilling drone swell...crawling and pulsing, as if further destabilizing the foundations that man clings to for meaning. “At The Edge Of Life, Everything Is An Occasion For Death” adds deep percussive thuds to darkly ambient synth passages, with vocals that pour disgust and bile.

Many of the tracks that make the album aren’t overly aggressive, but quite nicely work in the zone, creating a sort of harmony between contrasting sounds of disharmony. This cacophonous harmony is best exemplified by tracks like “Torn Between Will and Desire” which melds a subtle pulsing synth drone, with a repetitive mechanical sounding churn and fuzzed out vocal angst. The epic “Means To An End” acts as a fitting bookend and companion track to the to the album’s first opening salvo. Nearly 10 minutes in length, the track (similar to “Think God Out Of Existence”) melds an extended sample (seemingly in French), metal abuse, thick atmospherics, dark synth, and vocal damage.

All in all this is a very impressive effort. Humans may be nothing more than a complex, random assemblage of atoms, staring into the void of a godless universe, but there’s nothing accidental about An Occasion For Death. A crucial album!