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:	post by AUTOPSY_666 at 2007-04-29 04:16:10

A couple brutal reviews of the new CD...

Anyone heard this yet?

Kill God, Kill Christ, but moreover, kill art. - 5%
Written by BloodIronBeer on March 25th, 2007

Okay, I'm just going to get right to it. This band is so superficial and disposable it's ridiculous. Here's the band's formula, which remains unchanged from previous albums ...
Drums: Do fills with pauses for riff to be played four times, come in with ceaseless blast beat with ceaseless double bass at 250+ beats per minute (that's tempo, not the actual hits on the snare) Do occasional "switch beat", at half blast beat speed to feign variety. Make sure to trigger everything so it sounds like complete fake, mechanical because that's "evil" and make sure the snare and bass drum are triggered too loud in the mix, and the cymbals are really quiet.
Vocals: Sound like an aging death metal icon who's lost any passion he may or may not have ever had for a lost cause to free humanity from Christianity. After singing 4 lines, use screams to back up the next 4 lines, because your vocals are airy and laughable and this might help to mask that fact. Write the same lyrics with different song titles about killing Jesus, even though he's already dead. Instead of actually making an intelligent argument against Christianity, simply continue to write lyrics about Hell, the apocalypse, and killing Jesus, because that of course, will convince everyone not to be Christians and not because that's what's expected of you, being the evil, evil, evil band you are (this isn't a complaint about this band alone, it's a complaint about all "Satanic" bands who don't say anything intelligent. They even say moderately intelligent things about it in interviews, but they're lyrics are all the same contrived junk. Seriously, if you really want to destroy Christianity, why not make a real, valid, and intelligent argument against it, rather than trying to piss Christians off and in turn just strengthening their beliefs, while all the 16 year old death metallers giggle about your childish lyrics, which of course, you've been repeating since you were their age. Morons.)
Guitar: Play rehashed death metal riff. Play it again. Play it again. Play it again. Play it again. Play it again. Play it again. Play it again. Perhaps play two more riffs the same amount of times and stretch them out to obscenely boring, repetitive songs and fail miserably at being at all epic. Copy/paste the solo guitars from last album into the new album because your riffs are extremely weak and juvenile, and this may help to compensate for your lack of song and riff writing ability.
Song writing: Don't forget to make every song in the same key, at the same tempo, with a similar chord progression, with the same vocal pattern, and the same obtuse lyrics.
Yes, of course, it's fast, the guitar solo is cool (yes, solo - they all sound identical, like everything else here) and yes it's brutal. And those are the only reasons I give it any points at all. But who cares? No emotion, no intelligence, no artistic vision, no originality, no diversity, no song writing finesse and no talent beyond being able to play fast. It's forgettable, it's fake, it's boring ... it's the worst kind of bad; it's contrived. It just tries to be what people expect of it. Not any different than a pop singer. In trying to cater to your fans, you've killed artistic integrity, Vital Remains. You don't play for yourself, you don't express yourself, you express things just to please your audience. Nothing but a bunch of trendies.
If you want brutal death metal with great song writing, brutality, some originality, and intelligent lyrics, just listen to Behemoth or Beneath the Massacre. Even if you're not looking for all that much, there's a sea of bands that can do what Vital Remains does without being so damn repetitive.
Hey Vital Remains, you know what's more metal, yet still exponentially less contrived than trying to be "evil"?
... being intelligent, talented and original.

Play It Again, Tony... - 50%
Written by asymmetricist on March 15th, 2007

After a few years of extensive touring, Vital Remains have returned with the follow-up to "Dechristianize", and it could indeed be considered "Dechristianize 2". The elements are all pretty much the same: overused double-tracked vocals, overlong tracks, relentless blastbeats and neverending clicky double bass drum salvoes, and as a counterweight large portions of melodic lead guitar material and neoclassical solos. And again, a production that is brutal in its clarity, yet utterly sterile (though at least the snare isn't so tinny this time).
It really is a shame, because there's a lot of talent on display here. I'm essentially talking about Dave Suzuki, who handles both drumming and lead guitar duties, and is a remarkable performer (and has played both instruments live). He knows just how to pour beautiful streams of notes out of his guitar in the midst of almost Maiden-esque harmonies - but we heard it all four years ago. As for Tony Lazaro, who's responsible for all the songwriting: he needs some serious lessons in variety. Not within a single song; with most of the songs clocking in at 7-8 minutes, there's time for plenty of different sections. But the songs just don't sound very different from one another, unfortunately. The same riffs surface again and again, and we've heard them all somewhere else already. Truly, I don't know how musicians can remember which bits belong to which song on stage when they're all so similar.
And once again we have a dominant Glen Benton, often in duplicate. I have always found him one of the most boring death metal vocalists, being both devoid of variety and utterly bland, no matter how high and overpowering he might be in the mix. But this ties in with the rest of the music's components: big and fat, but lifeless and uninteresting. I'll give them one thing: this time around, they use the excessive song durations to put a bit more different material in each one, rather than essentially playing each song twice as they did on "Dechristianize". But as I said, that doesn't change much in the final reckoning.
Time and again one can witness how artists find a formula, then stick to it - and that's the worst thing that can happen. I've given this album 50% because there's a lot of ability here, but if I were being a bit more dogmatic and hardcore about it, I could imagine giving it much less, as it's pretty much a pre-fabricated product. "Underground"? My arse! This is high-polish stuff, with not a trace of underground roughness to it. "Dawn of the Apocalypse" sounded a lot more authentic. As for the lyrics/image/artwork, it's naturally the same unbelievably tired anti-Christian and Satanic clichés. Come on, does the world really need yet more of this? How about showing a bit of imagination?

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