Vulture Locust - Command Presence

Vulture Locust

Command Presence

by Dave “That Metal Guy” Campbell at 16 June 2015, 2:55 PM

VULTURE LOCUST is a Grind based Death / Thrash / Black / Doom / Crust band based out of Portland, Oregon. This is their debut full-length album, and contains fifteen tracks. Right out of the gate there is a unique production quality here but I am not sure if was done on purpose. The songs sound like they are coming from inside a partially open metal structure, because there is a muted, metallic echo that holds the instrumentation together. Stylistically I would have to call this traditional Grindcore, but the vocals are done in high pitched fashion as opposed to some of the super low grunts and growls we often here in this genre. Musically what is presented is ultra-intense noise with a lot of energy and a violent aggression, like the kind that would result in all of the instruments self-destructing at the end of the album. Many of the tracks are centered on the low key of E and sprout forth some semblance of riffing and blast beat drumming from there. Sometimes there are slower passages that break up the swift grinding, but the general level of bombast is omnipresent.

You would be hard pressed to be able to tell one track from the next and it begs the question of why bother even coming up with song titles in this genre? Overall there is no questioning the band’s commitment and brutality and this is a legitimate sound that many people enjoy, but I found it difficult to be able to describe much in terms of variegate.