Vorum - Poisoned Void

While the packaging for `Poisoned Void` is crappy (a monochrome digipak bereft of lyrics, photos or liner notes), thankfully the music contained within is not. As well as being tight as a nun`s chuff, the album is a deft mix of impetuous and crawling, baleful passages, venomous vocals and a lo-fi production that does wonders for the raw, old school vibe.

There is, however one fly in the fetid ointment which stops me giving this higher than 3 stars - namely the rather congealed songwriting, the 8 tracks on offer not being as distinct as they should be. The impression is of an album often less than the sum of it`s parts, and while it has enough tempo changes, variety and quality riffing to make it enjoyable once it`s playing, it`s hard to remember much about individual tracks once the disc stops spinning.

Still, the Finns filthy brand of organized chaos has a lot of potential, and this is (not counting their first ep) only a debut, so it`s quite conceivable they could hit the bullseye on their next release. Indeed, I can see Vorum unleashing a real monster one of these days.

6/10