Editor’s note: Today we’re featuring an interview by guest writer Morgan Y. Evans; the piece has been re-homed to Noob Heavy after its original online home was suddenly shuttered. Morgan (they/them) has been a musician and scene scribe since 1993 and worked with Metal Riot for 12 years. Their work has also been featured in New Noise (France and US), Hails and Horns/AMP, Chronogram, Pull Magazine, Crusher, and Pop Matters. Check out their current music project Walking Bombs!
Seething Malevolence by buzzy metal band (deservedly so) Vomit Forth is by far one of the most gut-churning and stressful yet rewarding releases of the year. What seems a complete exorcism of coiled rage nonetheless keeps on giving an endless well of bile. Vocalist Kane Gelaznik has the most commanding presence I have seen in a frontperson since Adam Warren or Larissa Stupar came on the scene, just totally filled with demon energy that you can’t help but feel when you see or hear it. Not easy to be the voice atop such an imposing wall of hellfire exploding sounds, is it?
Kane is a natural, and recently communicated with me about how it feels for the band at this crucial point in their climb.
Morgan: “Eucharist Intact” has this really raw feeling that really knocked me on my ass. Your whole sound I often feel like you are in the room with me, like an element of danger. Shit feels like it is almost peaking. You can tell you are really feeling it in the performances because it is so fuckin’ present and overpowering. How do you manage all that and not actually put yourselves over the edge of sanity’s precipice?
Gelaznik: Nothing about Vomit Forth is really fun or easy. We’ve never been handed anything and it’s really been a constant struggle. Our music is a reflection of that. Everything is always on the verge of exploding or dying or just falling apart. I’d say that I’ve been pushed over the edge of sanity a long time ago.
M: How has it been working with your label on this debut? (Editor’s note: Vomit Forth announced their signing to Century Media Records in May 2022.) It is always cool to see more support for bands as extreme as yours. It seems like they really let you just fuckin’ go nuts. The title track is off the chain.
G: Working with Century Media has been awesome. They’ve been a death metal label since the 80’s so it’s cool to work with people who know what they’re talking about.
M: Were these songs envisioned one at a time or did you always have a sort of general scope or shape in mind for the album?
G: They all came together during COVID writing-wise, but the album kind of evolved from there. It all came organically.
M: How did “I Feel Nothing” come about? Were you always a fan of these kind of audio detours to add atmosphere or a sense of dread? In a really obscure way it very loosely reminds me of like Fear Factorystretched out and blended into a noise artist’s chopping block and it sets up “Predatory Savior” perfectly.
G: So that song came about wayyy after the record was recorded and I started adding some sound design and harsh noise. I always like the like “I feel nothing” in “Predatory” and always thought the chord progression for the chorus was awesome so I decided to make like an overture to the song. So I just played the chord progression on a keyboard and recorded the vocals at home.
(Watch the music video for “Predatory Savior” here)
M: “Pious Killing Floor”. What is that one about? Is it hard writing songs about extreme or horrible shit in a time when so much of that is happening around us? So many people seem to be seeking actual malevolence.
G: “Pious Killing Floor” is about how we all succumb to our dark sides at one point in our lives. It’s up to us not to let it consume us, but unfortunately for most people they just let it overtake them. You give the power to what you became until there’s nothing left. Yes, they do seek malevolence. In the world I see no one wants help. Everyone is talking but no one is listening. Everyone wants to teach but no one wants to learn. The whole record in some ways is a critique of that toxicity in some ways.
M: How does it feel to be on the verge of this after all your hard work? What have been some of the more memorable bonding moments in the band’s history or shows or studio experiences that brought you closer together?
G: It feels surreal honestly. Playing with Internal Bleeding and Suffocation was huge for us. Especially Internal Bleeding, that band is one of our main influences and being able to hang out with them was just amazing.
M: Your band and Skeletal Remains or Tomb Mold really epitomize to me bands that can have some old school punishment to their sound but also move the dial towards modern extremity. Do you overthink shit or just let the evil flow where it may?
G: So for us there’s this initial stage of not thinking and letting things flow, and then overthinking the shit out of it and running through it with a fine-toothed comb over and over until we hate it then recording it and loving it again. As far as us having an old school vibe I think that’s because we were influenced by older bands and not really by our contemporaries.