Review by Carl on July 19, 2021.

Whoa, this stuff pounds harder than a fat lady falling down the stairs! Good thing this CD only lasts some 16 minutes, because much more would've turned the whole neighborhood into a smoldering crater.

The band serve up a tasty mixture of slamming brutal death metal in the vein of acts like Abominable Putridity or Devour The Unborn, with influences from older acts such as Skinless, early Devourment and Eternal Suffering. The music has all the typical characteristics of the brutal death metal style you'd come to expect: the gutturals, the alternating slamming parts with vicious blasting and the down-tuned guitar work, it's all here. What sets these guys apart from their colleagues is the variation in the songs. The band does not stick to the usual blast-slam-blast structures that are so common in the style but inject more variation into their music. The song structures have an old school death feel to them, making their sound feel more like an updated version of what bands like Suffocation or Dying Fetus did on their earliest releases. To put it simply: Virulent Excision don't just string together a bunch of individual parts, they write actual songs, while keeping their music remorselessly brutal in its execution. Another commendable thing is that the band does not overdo it with the intros. This is what a brutal death metal band in this day should be in my opinion.

The only criticism I'm going to make is one of pure personal taste: for me it sounds perhaps a tad too clean. This could have used a bit more grit, like the latest Devourment album, for example. Again, this is purely personal, you reading this might have a whole different take on it.

This EP simply crushes the competition with ease, and stays interesting even after repeated spins. This is recommended to all who are into well executed, heavy and aggressive brutal death metal. It will not disappoint.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Review by Vladimir on December 16, 2023.

I personally dig a lot of kickass black/thrash metal bands, because for such pure and raw subgenre, there simply is no place for disgrace, especially musical pretentiousness. Among one of the new additions to the ranks of this subgenre, enters an Arizona based one-man band Warwitch, that released its debut EP Monument Of Death And War on April 20th, 2023. 

The musical output of Warwitch is black/thrash metal with some traces of oldschool death metal here and there, that fuel the aggressive riffing with thrashing drums, along with the deep harsh vocals that scream from the bowels of hell. Each song possesses a very extreme form of musical expression that rips through the flesh and crushes the bone, and it even turns into something a bit atmospheric, like on the slower instrumental third track 'Conscription' which still makes for a very effective output even though it's shorter than others. The fourth track 'Fields Of Gore' is perhaps where the musical direction starts leaning more towards oldschool death metal from the overall established black/thrash metal that is the band’s main factor. The EP is very mixed with ideas of all things concerning extreme metal subgenres from death to black to thrash metal, and it really takes itself seriously yet successfully proving its worth. The great thing about each song is that there is an overall consistency and sense of direction, without there being a song or perhaps an idea within a song that feels like a step in the wrong direction, or that it strays off a bit from where it was meant to go. The sound production with the buzzsaw guitar tone, banging drums and reverbed vocals really does the music justice, pushing every bit of performance forward to stand out and excel. 

I must say that this EP is really good and I enjoyed it overall. Honestly, I never came across a black/thrash metal release that isn’t worth a go, and I think that you will definitely like Warwitch if you are into bands that combine black and thrash metal with some traces of death metal. 

Rating: 8.2 out of 10