Gosforth "V.H.E.M.T." CD

I'm going to assume that Gosforth's debut album is named after the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a rather obscure little collective of people on the internet who feel that humans should willingly stop breeding to save the earth, eventually leading to mankind's willful extinction. If that's not what the album is named after, it's an extremely curious coincidence, and if it is, it's a very odd and interesting spin on typical black metal misanthropy.
In essence this is the less intellectual and cleverly made brother of 'Hornlust', the band's sophomore release. The hallmarks of Gosforth's sound are present: the juxtaposition of depressive tremolo riffing with more chunky and demonic post-Darkthrone passages, running alongside clever song structures and screechy vocals (less depressive and more typical Italian black metal on this release), but the instrumentation and riffs aren't as complex and there isn't as much daring development of themes as on 'Hornlust'. While 'Hornlust''s sort of linear songwriting flow resulted in slow shifts of mood, on 'V.H.E.M.T.' the band just sort of throws their two main stylistic directions against each other and sits by to see who comes out alive.
That being said, there's some excellent moments on this release, typically the more melodic ones. 'Evocation Of Mantus' has some devastating depressive riffs, and the opening track 'Vhemt' recalls Swedish artists with a certain US edge which makes for an interesting combination. Like 'Hornlust', some of these tracks sound like they were recorded at a different time- Gosforth just can't line up a solid stretch of recording apparently- which is an annoying feature; production consistency is a big deal to me so it's a vexing little detail. It doesn't massively impact the album but I wish it was more coherent.
'Hornlust' is the better of the two, but if you liked that one there's no reason not to grab 'V.H.E.M.T.' as well. This one might appeal a little more to the more oldschool among us; it's less sleek and modernized than 'Hornlust' and places more emphasis on the Darkthroney sections. Anyway, it's a fun album that doesn't endure in the way 'Hornlust' does but is still worth a few listens.

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