Thaumaturgic Veil, the fourth full-length from Milwaukee’s Viogression, came out of nowhere. It could be that the band has no label, and maybe that is why? Their last album, 3rd Stage of Decay, was a damn good album, and this album has a very striking and cool AF album cover. Brian DeNeffe, vocals, is the sole original member, and with this album cover, I thought..hmmmm..this is going to be a leap in technical sounds and possibly lyrics, as this is not your typical death metal album cover. If you like the Pestilence masterpiece, Testimony of the Ancients, with all those intros and such, then well, what we have here is a total of 19 entries, with similar types of intros to each song. It’s a bit overkill, and the album comes in at 50 minutes. A lot of music and shit are happening here.

“Enûma Elish Ilū” is a short intro, which to me, adds not a whole lot, until “Jinx” erupts, and it’s clear the band has the main components intact of 90s death metal. Brian’s vocals sound as good as ever, and Duane Timlin’s drums have a very organic sound; however, the mix on his snare is hellaciously loud. Lief Larson has some quality guitar riffing happening. Kyle Sweeny has the bass swinging around every so often, and Matt Holtz is still listed as playing guitar and bass, perhaps? There are some cool guitar solos and riffing, having a bit of a melodic and ethereal edge. The double bass drums sound terrific.

“Akhara Aakasa” is a 45-second intro before “Renumeration” erupts with the smashing drums, then the death/thrash erupts with a plethora of growls. The blast beat erupts then, and given the organic sound of the drums, at times, the production of the drums come across as a rehearsal sound, not a knock on the drumming, just mentioning the production is more jam style focused, imo. The isolated guitar riffing at the 1.50 mark, then right into that speedy gallop, is a killer headbanging moment that the band again repeats with a cool guitar solo over this part. Brian’s vocals are coming across as similar to Tardy/Mameli, back in their heyday. This song is a lot of fun and very catchy. I’m going to skip over mentioning all the song intros and just get to the songs themselves.

“Pummeled” is the perfect song name. It begins with a great early 90’s death thrashing beat, and then we are treated to a bass solo, in the very beginning, mind you, and that bass guitar is very prominent on this song. After the slow down then right into a quick blast beat. The song erupts into a slower moment and sounding a bit poly-rhythmic in nature, which is pretty cool. Then right into another blast beat, then returning to the great gallop, before that cool ass off-kilter moment returns. I could see a pit during this moment erupting quite violently.

“Light Harvester” ends the album with a great opening guitar riff, which smashes into a blast beat. More galloping and headbanging moments occur alongside the blast beats. There are guitar solos over the blast beat, towards the end of the song, with a very cool old school guitar squealing moment. The production of the drums, as previously mentioned, really makes the drums sound loose on this song. Depending on your preference, you may or may not enjoy this. The double bass drums do sound excellent.

Thaumaturgic Veil is a fun death metal album by Viogression. There are many melodic and ethereal dream-like moments, which go along great with this album cover. The viciousness and pummeling moments are still as ever present. I feel that if the production was tightened up then there would not be moments such as when the blasting occurs, that snare has a tendency to drown certain aspects out of the other instruments. I respect the band for staying true to their 90’s sound as well as incorporating a variety of various sounds, and moments to push the band forward, in the scene.

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