- Oct 22, 2006
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Vital Remains – Icons of Evil
Century Media Records – 5 051099 763920 - 2007
By Dan Fisher
Vital Remains are a death metal super (evil) group comprised of Deicide's Glen Benton on vokills, principle composer and founding member Tony Lazaro on guitars and Dave Suzuki on drums and lead guitars. When an album opens with the sound of an unknown man being whipped and nailed to the cross (I wonder who that could be?), you know you're in for a gleefully satanic romp through the minds of a band that have made it their job to dechristianise the world as they see it. First feelings are ones of shock and awe at the musicianship, particularly the drumming and the unrelenting ferocity of the sound. This music just hurts you in so many ways it's ridiculous. Even to the well seasoned death metal listener, my senses seemed to shut down after a couple of songs, so I turned it off and started again later that day, only to have the same thing happen. While I can imagine Benton and co chuckling at this remark, A few breather's dotted here and there like the instrumentals in Nile's work would actually help to highlight the moments of brutality rather than detract from them. Benton's vokills are absolutely pitch black and mostly indecipherable which is a shame as I'm really non the wiser to the message in them now, other than the obvious cliches that one might imagine them to be preaching about. His growl is so deep that someone needs to find a way of clarifying the lyrics in the mix while retaining the brutality. Again, having listened to the new Nile song on the ozzfest website I still feel they have the upper hand in terms of production. One thing that kept popping into my head was the idea of some higher pitched vokills and I wondered what King Diamond might do with the tracks if given the chance. I suppose we will never know. As far as placing this album in the rock pantheon, I would say it will become one of those albums that people dip into as inspiration for writing, kinda like bands do with Meshuggah. But I wouldn't call it a classic in the sense that there is nothing particularly new here to make it a landmark album aside from unrelenting brutality which, quite frankly, any death metal band worth their salt can achieve now. I would say the next step would be to offset this fury with other elements to allow the music to transcend mere mortal status and put Vital Remains at the right hand of the dark lord himself.
Official Vital Remains Website
Official Century Media Website
Century Media Records – 5 051099 763920 - 2007
By Dan Fisher
Vital Remains are a death metal super (evil) group comprised of Deicide's Glen Benton on vokills, principle composer and founding member Tony Lazaro on guitars and Dave Suzuki on drums and lead guitars. When an album opens with the sound of an unknown man being whipped and nailed to the cross (I wonder who that could be?), you know you're in for a gleefully satanic romp through the minds of a band that have made it their job to dechristianise the world as they see it. First feelings are ones of shock and awe at the musicianship, particularly the drumming and the unrelenting ferocity of the sound. This music just hurts you in so many ways it's ridiculous. Even to the well seasoned death metal listener, my senses seemed to shut down after a couple of songs, so I turned it off and started again later that day, only to have the same thing happen. While I can imagine Benton and co chuckling at this remark, A few breather's dotted here and there like the instrumentals in Nile's work would actually help to highlight the moments of brutality rather than detract from them. Benton's vokills are absolutely pitch black and mostly indecipherable which is a shame as I'm really non the wiser to the message in them now, other than the obvious cliches that one might imagine them to be preaching about. His growl is so deep that someone needs to find a way of clarifying the lyrics in the mix while retaining the brutality. Again, having listened to the new Nile song on the ozzfest website I still feel they have the upper hand in terms of production. One thing that kept popping into my head was the idea of some higher pitched vokills and I wondered what King Diamond might do with the tracks if given the chance. I suppose we will never know. As far as placing this album in the rock pantheon, I would say it will become one of those albums that people dip into as inspiration for writing, kinda like bands do with Meshuggah. But I wouldn't call it a classic in the sense that there is nothing particularly new here to make it a landmark album aside from unrelenting brutality which, quite frankly, any death metal band worth their salt can achieve now. I would say the next step would be to offset this fury with other elements to allow the music to transcend mere mortal status and put Vital Remains at the right hand of the dark lord himself.
Official Vital Remains Website
Official Century Media Website
