UMUR "Passage" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based death metal act Viogression. The album was released through Tombstone Records in 1992. 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 "Passage" pretty much continues down the same old school death metal path as the music on "Expound and Exhort (1991)". It´s simple, brutal, and mostly mid-paced death metal with a vocalist that has a voice and growling delivery very similar to the voice and growling delivery of John Tardy (Obituary). Instrumentally it´s also Obituary that I´m mostly reminded of. But that´s pretty much where the comparisons stop, because Viogression doesn´t possess anything resembling the class of Obituary. The riffs on the album are generally forgettable and lack any form of groove or punch and the few solos on the album are not very well played. The drumming is organic, but sounds slightly untight. A positive is how Barry Jaeger plays his blast beats though. It´s fascinating how he accentuates his snare drum hits. Interesting blast beat style for sure, but it doesn´t save the overall drumming style from sounding a bit amaturish. It´s ultimately the vocals that save the day because the instrumental part of the music is generic at best, and poor at worst.

So my impression of the album isn´t that positive, and that feeling is further enchanced by the weak and thin sounding production. Add to that songwriting that´s only occasionally interesting and generally lacks hooks, and you got another release by Viogression that ends in the mediocre death metal album catagory. I´ll play nice and say that "Passage" is slightly better than "Expound and Exhort (1991)" and therefore award it with a 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating, but overall it´s not a particularly good quality release.

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.

UMUR "Execution" is the second demo release by US, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based death metal act Viogression. The demo was self-released in 1990. Viogression was 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 this 4 track, 12:01 minutes long demo has absolutely nothing to do with neither industrial nor thrash metal though. Instead Viogression plays a very Obituary influenced type of death metal. It´s relatively simple and straight forward and they do nothing to conceal their influences. This would be even more pronounced on their studio albums. As such the songwriting, the musicianship, and the sound production are all relatively decent. But compared to the band they so clearly worship, this is a pretty second rate production. It´s not bad, but pretty unremarkable.

As a demo "Execution" lays the cards down immediately. The labels who received this, knew exactly which type of band Viogression was and what they could expect from them if they signed them. In the end it ended up being the relatively unknown label Tombstone Records that signed Viogression and released their two full-lengths. As an individual product "Execution" is decent but not more than that and a 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.