Everything has SOME kind of absorption qualities and it's ridiculous that they would say such a thing.
Even glass has absorption qualities. It only depends on your needs.
But then, right now especially, the whole arena of sound treatment is awash with dogma and fashion. In the 50s, it was all about large bass traps. By the 70s, it was all about being super dead. By the 80s, it was all about foam. Here we are full circle. And YET, great music has been recorded in all of those environments and many more.
It is the height of ego to proclaim doom upon a room that hasn't been auditioned. Materials are pretty well known, but it takes a lot of data to process the exact characteristics of a room.
All that said, it's probably a slightly safer bet to layer that stuff with something else. That is, in an "ordinary" room of "ordinary" shape and proportion monitoring "ordinary" music, the vinyl coating will probably be more reflective than you'd prefer. The pad part will still do its job in its limited bandwidth. So layering it with another material, yes, even shag carpet, would probably be more to your liking and would provide a more noticeable deadening effect.
Ponder5