Exclusive Track Premiere: Monument of Misanthropy’s “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio”
The Ogre of Aptos.
Ever since the deformation and subsequent reformation of the band in 2018 under the guidance of vocalist George Wilfinger, Austrian brutal death metal freaks Monument of Misanthropy have focused their efforts on creating the appropriate soundtracks to the horrific lives and crimes of serial killers. 2021’s Unterweger, the band’s first album on Transcending Obscurity Records, focused on Jack Unterweger, an Austrian serial killer who, after being convicted of murder, endeared himself so much to the Austrian literati through his prison writings, that he was released on parole in 1990, only to then kill 9 more women before hanging himself. The Mindhunter of brutal death metal, Monument of Misanthropy takes its unpleasant subjects seriously, crafting a huge, audacious sonic misanthropy a la Aborted and Benighted to complement the inhuman acts of these figures.
On August 9, 2024, Monument of Misanthropy will release their followup 3rd LP Vile Postmortem Irrumatio on Transcending Obscurity. This time, the focus of the album is Santa Cruz menace Big Ed Kemper, the still-living 6’9″ murderer of ten people, including his grandparents, mother, mother’s best friend, 5 women in college, and 1 high school student. Similarly to Unterweger, Kemper impressed the right people and has garnered attention and infamy for it, not to mention certain types of freedoms and conciliations, in a way that highlights something very rotten in our society’s inability to comprehend, confront, and adequately address the kind of acts committed by Kemper. As the song “Manipulating the Experts” attests, Kemper possessed the right “IQ” and temperament to trick psychologists, therapists, and other experts into a considerably more expansive lifestyle while imprisoned than one might expect. In a sense, the dichotomy between his horrific, unthinkable, grotesque, sickening acts and his perceived “sanity” is ripe for the kind of narrative dissection at the heart of Vile Postmortem Irrumatio.
Today, we’re—is thrilled the right word?—creepily excited (excitedly creeped out?) to share with you the title track and third single from Vile Postmortem Irrumatio. Following “The Atascasdero Years,” a song that details the years Kemper spent in the Atascasdero State Hospital after shooting to death his grandparents, and “A Nice Beheading for Mom,” which ventures into the culminating acts of Kemper’s murder of his hated and abusive mother and her best friend,” “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio” is, like the other two singles, a quick-hitter, wasting absolutely no time in its all-out attack. Named after the particular necrophilic act which, christ, was more or less Kemper’s calling card, “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio” is one of my favourite tracks on the album and, I think, one of the strongest of the band’s career. Wilfinger reaches deep into his Travis Ryan Bag of Tricks, mixing some gremlin-shriek highs with his thundering gutturals. The track matches Wilfinger’s vocals, sounding the most like Cattle Decapitation on the album. Guitarists Julius Kössler and Joe Gatsch are perhaps never tighter and more in sync than on “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio,” kept in perfect time by the impressive ingenuity of session drummer Eugene Ryabchenko (Fleshgod Apocalypse). There are momentous, chugging breakdowns, roaring solos, haunting passages, tremolo harmonies, and a staggering sense of the tremendous brutality and gut-wrenching reality of the acts committed by Kemper and documented here by the band. The cataclysmic ending of “Vile Postmortem Irrumatio” seems fitting, as the band does not make light nor revel in Kemper’s terrible acts but rather uses their music to tell the gruesome, dreadful story in their own way.
About the track, the band has this to say:
“The title track to our new Album ‘Vile Postmortem Irrumatio’ is musically one of the more straight-forward in your face tracks, dominated by Julius’ catchy riffs and Eugene Ryabchenko’s (Fleshgod Apocalypse) mind blowing drums, firing on all cylinders from start to finish. The song itself tells the story of Cindy Schall’s deadly encounter with Ed Kemper testing his new 22 Ruger semi-pistol automatic…”
Cindy Schall was the 6th person to lose their life and have their body degraded by Kemper. Schall was an 18-year old student at Cabrillo College when she was murdered, disfigured, tortured posthumously, and discarded by Kemper. Certainly, I wouldn’t be premiering or even wasting my time with songs from a band I thought was making light of or not taking seriously the actions of such a monster as Kemper, and I do think Monument of Misanthropy, like so many folks, are both fascinated and horrified by what Kemper did. The names and lives of those who met such appalling and abominable ends at the merciless hands of such men should never be forgotten. It is cold comfort to their families, but what else is there to offer in a world that could include such realities?
Vile Postmortem Irrumatio hits the shelves August 9
on Transcending Obscurity Records.
