Patricidal Lust, the second full-length from Vastum, is a record about sex, but the Bay Area death metal group don't discuss it in the way most metal bands that broach the topic do. For instance, the album didn't spring from the mind of Blackie Lawless before he bound himself to the law of God, speaking of himself as a carnivorous animal conquering his scantily clad prey. Nor does it resemble the drugged-out rape fantasies and over-the-top depictions of Cemetery Rapist and legions of other “pornogrind” bands, who take the lack of subtlety in metal and beat it into absolute zero. And Lust is certainly not among the many revenge stories that a great deal attempted, but only Type O Negative's Peter Steele had any skill in visualizing (“freelance gynocology” from “Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity” is still one of the funniest phrases of all time).
Instead, Daniel Butler, Vastum's vocalist and lyricist, takes a grisly look at erotic tension at its most extreme. The results are more squeamish than Cannibal Corpse's “Fucked With a Knife”. In “3 AM in Agony”, he speaks from the point of view of a sexual assault victim, whose “object of my affection, the source of my agony” is sleeping nearby. The perpetrator is “unaware that his friction creates the sensation of a thousand interstitial blades down my center.” Just reading those lines is unsettling; Butler's oration makes it feel almost too real. The title track shows Butler entering the darkest corners of his imagination, opening with “Spill your seed into my father's tears/ his suffering all over my body” and then laying into said father's guts for discomforting warmth. By making even the most disgustingly surreal seam somewhat plausible, Vastum's lyrical content goes beyond most bands of their ilk.
Lust's overall lyrical outlook could be summed up in the last lines of “Incel”: “Mere echos of delight/ A distant mockery of joy/ unconsummated acts consume body and mind/ A prison of what could but never will be/ Hopeless ugly destructive self.” A subject normally discussed with glee and passion, turned into a never-ending labyrinth of loss and uncertainty. These themes are galvanized by Paolo Girardi's artwork. Girardi, who's having a banner year (Lycus' Tempest being his crowning achievement), is the ideal visual counterpart—he's a classically influenced Francis Bacon, blurring the line between fine art and heat-stroked, pill-popped hallucination.
Vastum is often spoken in relation to their sister band, Acephalix, primarily because the groups share Butler, bassist Luca Indrio, and until recently, guitarist Kyle House (Adam Perry, who drummed on Lust, also left the group before the album's release). Carnal Law, Vastum's debut, was often described as a “slower Acephalix” and while that's true to some extent, on Lust the band make strides to carve an identity for themselves. Swedish influences are evident, but while Acephalix were often dubiously lumped in with “Entombedcore,” Vastum take more from Grave and Dismember's less breakneck aspects.
Guitarist Leila Abdul-Rauf, who also plays in the Bay Area groups Hammers of Misfortune and Amber Asylum, is more apt to let a solo ride than hurry to the next verse, and Vastum's rushes come more from stretching riffs out, as evident on the thunderous opening to “Repulsive Arousal”. (Combined with a buried tremolo riff and chanting, that track resembles diSEMBLOWELMENT at their finest.) While Butler has long shed the punk from his approach, his voice isn't touched with reverb the way it is with Acephalix. Vastum's style works in the tandem with the lyrical content. There's more space for reflection, or disgust, or, as the band would probably want it, both. “Agony” deals with the most immediately physical lyrics, and as such, it's the fastest track on the record.
Lust was one of the last albums that Bay Area metal and punk stawart Jeff “Jef Leppard” Davis worked on before his death last year following a motorcycle accident. Greg Wilkinson took over production following Davis' death, and he honors Davis' style by creating an old-school metal atmosphere with modern volume. Lust, in addition to being one of the most interesting metal releases of 2013, serves as a artistically fulfilling coda for Davis' handiwork.
