UMUR
"Expound and Exhort" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based death metal act Viogression. The album was released through Tombstone Records in 1991. Viogression were a relatively shortlived act who were active in the years 1988 - 1992. In that period they recorded two demos and two full-length studio albums. After Viogression disbanded several of the members went on to form the even more shortlived industrial/thrash metal act Medusa Oblongada.
The music on "Expound and Exhort" is a simple old school style of death metal. You probably won´t find a review of Viogression´s releases without the mention of Obituary as a major influence, and to my ears those mentions are pretty valid. This is brutal to the core and the growling vocals deliver very few lyric lines in an unintelligible manner, which makes them work more like an instrument than vocals usually do.
The vocals are actually one of the highlights on the album, because the instrumental part of the music is predominantly painfully simple, features awkward rhythm changes, lacks groove, and seriously lacks hooks of any kind. Add to that playing which sounds a bit uninspired and a relatively poor and powerless sound production and "Expound and Exhort" doesn´t exactly come off as a quality product. The many short intros and interludes between tracks are also rather ridiculous. I´m not sure if they are meant to be funny or if they are meant to create an eerie atmosphere, but they succeed in being/doing neither. Instead they are hilarious in an amaturish Ed Wood fashion, and it´s safe to say that I´m not impressed by this particular part of the album.
In fact there is very little to be impressed about on "Expound and Exhort", which is through and through an amaturish sounding death metal release. There are moments that catch my attention and when they occur I feel slightly bad that I´m rating "Expound and Exhort" this low, but when it comes down to it, there are not enough of those good quality moments on the album to save it from receiving a 2.5 star (50%) rating.