Vaneno – Chaos, Hostility, Murder review

01. DQSFLQSF
02. Eldritch Truth
03. Chaos, Hostility, Murder
04. Dark Lord
05. God Complex
06. Sludgehammer
07. Necropotent
08. Yeti

Particularly with the increasing saturation of most subgenres, there’s frequent discussions within the context of metal regarding the merits of doing something new versus doing something well. With Chaos, Hostility, Murder, Vaneno are doing nothing new, but the sludge metal contained within the album is crafted to a very high standard.

Portugal isn’t the most prolific metal nation, but the bands that do emerge from there tend to be reliably good. Released but 4 days apart from Kur, the impressive sophomore record of black metal compatriots Anzv, this debut record full-length record from Vaneno storms out the gate with bruising yet irresistible sludge riffs that feed man’s primal urges. The influence of bands such as High On Fire can be heard in the fast thrashing surges scattered across the record, while the slower, meatier tracks roll with a similar level of groove to the one that made the recent Horndal album so tasty.

The record opens with a 2-minute instrumental intro track, and while it does establish the tone of the record from the off, it’s arguably slightly redundant; repeating a single riff before fading back into nothingness, it doesn’t really build much in the way of momentum. I think the album could’ve opened just as effectively with the first ‘proper’ song, “Eldritch Truth”, but from the beginning of this track, Vaneno are all guns blazing. This track is on the slower side, striding forward with mean, gnarling mid-tempo riffs accompanied by snarling screamed vocals, and it saves its best for last by working its way to the kind of irresistibly hooky climactic riff that makes me such a fan of this genre.

Further examples of Vaneno’s power at mid-range speeds include the title track, which is taken to another level by a long, stylish solo, and “God Complex”. The approach remains almost exactly the same across these tracks, but when one is capable of throwing out riffs that would make Mastodon proud, such as a blink-and-you-miss-it one around 100 seconds into “Sludgehammer”, there’s no real need to play around with things all that much. There’s going to be very few bands in the genre this year capable of writing songs of the calibre of “Sludgehammer” or “Necropotent”.

However, as alluded to earlier on, there are some moments in which Vaneno up the ante pacewise, and “Dark Lord” is the first instance in the tracklist in which the band pay tribute to High On Fire; the solo midway into the song is the trigger point for Vaneno to put pedal to the metal and unleash the kind of sludge/thrash surging venom that has come to define High On Fire. The song most indebted to Matt Pike & co, however, is closing song “Yeti”, which begins at maximum velocity and doesn’t let up until its final chord. Well, that would be the case if the song actually finished when it fades to silence at around 4 minutes, but Vaneno apparently decided a ‘secret track’ hidden after minutes of silence was a trend due for a comeback; I have to disagree with you on that one, guys.

It might not start or end in the best ways, but everything in between the bookending moments of Chaos, Hostility, Murder is firmly on point. Vaneno aren’t reinventing the wheel, but they don’t need to; their first album is likely to be one of the highlights of sludge metal in 2025.

Written on 10.06.2025 by Hey chief let's talk why not

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