Hot damn... almost an hour of Vader's patented Polish death metal, six new tracks (the "Blood" EP) tacked onto the 10 tracks from "Reign Forever World". The new songs are pretty damn good, taking the band's classic styled death metal into a slightly thrashier direction with a lot more tempo changes and a slightly more pronounced vocal style that's easier to understand. And I definitely like that. The slower riffing is really powerful and marks a great contrast to the speed, and some of the sick dissonant chords in "We Wait" are incredible. I also like that some of the songs are short as fuck, clocking in right around two minutes of well harnessed speed and intensity. The recording is fine, the drums are of course a bit on the rigid side, mainly the kicks, but I can live with that. And the guitar tone is really nice, I think I'd just turn the bass and guitars up slightly louder, but they're definitely sounding as strong as ever as a whole. "Reign Forever World" contains three studio tracks, three covers (Destruction's "Total Desaster", "Rapid Fire" by Judas Priest, and "Freezing Moon" by Mayhem), a couple of live recordings, and the two songs that appeared as bonus cuts on the Japanese pressing of "Litany" a few years ago. Musically it's in line with the new stuff, mixing a lot of precise speeds with some killer slow rhythms (check out the title track), though the Judas Priest cover isn't really working half as well as the other two. Surprisingly enough the two live songs sound pretty damn good, they're really not that far off from the studio work except that the drums are a little flat and the vocals lack emphasis. The studio production is about on par with the tracks from "Blood", though the mix is more favorable to the guitars. I'd still like to hear more bass, though! The layout's pretty cool. They've split it up so that both EP covers are squeezed onto the front, and it's sort of like two booklets in one, with the "Reign Forever World" booklet starting up on the page after the end of the "Blood" content. The lyrics aren't earth shattering, but they're better than average for death metal I'd say, and the band does tend to tackle topics that have a certain theme or concept. "We are carving out light, The airless structures of agape for stars that never touch, We wait in hiding, we lie in wait, We patiently seek the day when all our wishes are come true, When the new world order has arrived." Another keeper from Vader. I think it's awesome that Metal Blade combined these two releases... not a bad little bonus there.
[Metal Blade]
Running time - 52:43, Tracks: 16
[Notable tracks: Shape-Shifting, We Wait, When Darkness Calls, Reign Forever World, Total Desaster]
Metal Blade Records - http://www.metalblade.com
