Vader – ‘Welcome To The Morbid Reich’ Album Review

Vader are not so much a death metal band as a dedicated force of nature, a whirling, irrepressible hurricane of sound that has been roaring out of Europe since 1983. Formed at a time when Poland was still heavily in the grip of Communism, Vader were one of just three Polish metal bands (joined by Kat and TSA) and their blazing musical skills are matched only by the band’s immense dedication to the cause. Fans of heavy music first and foremost, Vader have continued to release blistering albums and EPs over the years with their hard work finally paying dividends when the band signed to Nuclear Blast, a label capable of giving Vader the promotion they deserve. With line up troubles leading to all sorts of personnel shifts in recent years, the 2011 line-up of Vader is significantly different from the wide-eyed death metal aficionados who started out in 1983, but one thing remains the same and that is Vader’s utter commitment to creating the heaviest, fastest death metal going. With a title that references the band’s debut, ‘Welcome to the morbid Reich’ is as vicious and unrelenting a slab of metal as fans could wish for and it even includes a re-recording of the ancient ‘Decapitated saints’ to show that the band are still very much in touch with their roots.

Setting the scene with the atmospheric ‘ultima thule’, it is the rampaging, urgent title track that sees the band announce their presence with searing lead guitar work and Piotr Wiwczarek’s distinctive vocals placed satisfyingly high in the mix. It is an epic song that opens with an elegant, slowed-down riff before that roar unleashes hell upon the listener and the BPM almost doubles. It’s a brutal opening that is rapidly beaten down by the glorious stop-start unpleasantness of ‘the black eye’, a four minute exercise in violence that will undoubtedly see many Vader fans leaving the mosh-pit with the aforementioned war trophy as a badge of honour. With a rippling solo smashing apart the death metal riffs, it’s a welcome reminder of just how good Vader are musically and it’s a moment of pure air-guitar heaven for those who worship skills upon the fret-board.

Having decimated the listener with an opening punch of immense depth and ferocity, Vader continue to surpass expectations with ‘come and see my sacrifice’, a hyper-speed blast of thrashing death metal that sees the riffs fly thick and fast and a chorus that is destined to be a live favourite. Like so much of Vader’s output this is pure fist-in-the-air death metal that makes you want to leap from your seat and windmill ‘till you puke. It’s impossible to explain to someone unfamiliar with the genre, but for anyone who lives and breathes metal this is the sort of release that sends your blood pressure through the roof and demands your allegiance. It’s a surging, immense adrenalin rush that gets the blood pumping and I dare you to try and play it at low volumes; you’ll have the thing terrifying your neighbours and small children walking past in minutes. ‘Only hell knows’ is next and it opens with a roar of pure deathly hatred which nicely sets the tone for the next few minutes until you are faced with the blistering, bristling monument to fury that is ‘I am who feasts upon your soul’, the glorious centrepiece of this excellent album. Simply an astonishing piece of heavy music, ‘I am…’ is the track you need to play to anyone foolish enough to have missed out on Vader’s charms over years and it is the moment you’ll come back to time and again just to make sure it really is as good as it initially appears (it is). Venomous technical death metal it is a devilish high point that demonstrates exactly why Vader are spoken of in hushed tones  by fans of death metal the world over and it shows that this long-running act have plenty to still offer the world of extreme metal.

Opening with a stunning solo ‘don’t rip the beast’s heart out’ is a more melodic offering than other tracks on here, although that is rather like stating that firing squad is a less extreme method of death than machete, and once the guitar pyrotechnics fade away we’re into some stunningly heavy territory, while as Piotr intones “just open my chest, with smile on his face, tearing my bleeding heart out”  the flesh well and truly raises on the arms in reaction to the beautiful horror of it all. It’s like the first time you heard ‘angel of death’ with its stomach churning lyrics and the overall effect is much the same. The pithily titled ‘I had a dream’ happily does not fall into the pit of the ballad that the title suggests and instead the band unleash a riff that is part rock music, part battering ram while Piotr outdoes himself by sounding even more inhuman than normal. ‘Lord of thorns’ meanwhile adopts a head-down, pedal-to-the-metal approach leading you straight to the newly unearthed ‘Decapitated saints’ (which the band have also promised to break out on tour) which does little to improve upon the original although it manages rather successfully to make the rest of the album sound slow in comparison. The final two tracks comprise the creepy intro ‘they are coming’ and the stunning slow grind of ‘black velvet and skulls of steel’, a track which sees the album end in suitably epic, grandiose style.

Vader have been doing this a long time. For sure fans and death metal aficionados argue over which albums are the best and which are rather more average, but then this is the curse of any long-running band and Vader are no exception to the rule. For what it’s worth I have always felt Vader to be stunningly consistent, rarely dropping the ball or releasing something unworthy of the mighty name that they have forged, but it is certainly true that some albums within their catalogue rise above the others (‘impressions in blood’ for example) to attain true classic status and this album, with its belly full of fire and fury, is one of those. It is rarely less than stunning with huge growling riffs subjugating the listener and Piotr’s trademark growl pushing the tracks forward with tormented fervour and that’s before we even get to the solos which spark with energy as they scratch across the dense surface of the songs. A worthy, brutal death-metal release, Vader have once again re-affirmed why they are considered amongst the kings of the death metal scene.