Tom Araya, what hath you and your band Slayer wrought?<\/p>\n
Back in the glory days of metal, you, along with scores of other
\nbands, proved that originality and imagination were by no means
\ndead, and you consistently delivered the goods to further your
\nclaim. What you ended up spawning were dozens upon dozens of bands
\nwho took your own original sound and hammered it out to their own
\nneeds. In time, the clones started to be the musical equivalent of
\na photocopy of a photocopy — that is, somewhat akin to the
\noriginal, though growing fuzzier with each knockoff.<\/p>\n
I kind of got that feeling when listening to Vehement’s release
\nUnbalanced For Mankind<\/i>. Hailing from the death metal capital
\nof the world – Downers Grove, Illinois – this trio produces songs
\nthat will please fans of the genre, even if it doesn’t fully
\nsatisfy them. (I know the Downers Grove area pretty well, having
\ngone to college a short drive away from the city. Lovely place,
\nwith shopping malls as far as the eye can see.)<\/p>\n
I’d love to do nothing more than spew praise about the band –
\nvocalist\/bassist Bno, guitarist “Guitarzan” Mike and drummer John
\nCrazylegs – if only because they live within an hour or so’s drive
\nfrom me, and the last thing I want is to have them on my doorstep
\nready to kick the crap out of me for slamming them. But the more I
\nlstened to
\nUnbalanced For Mankind<\/i>, I wondered why the band didn’t try
\nto forge their own path instead of treading upon others’ ghosts.
\nThink Slayer meets Black Sabbath, then remove the demonic
\nimagery.<\/p>\n
There are some signs of promise with Vehement. The opening track
\n“Immaculate Entrapment” dares to suggest that they could be seen as
\na contender for the big picture when metal makes its commercial
\ncomeback. Add to this the incredible guitar work on the
\ninstrumental “Creation,” and you’re given some good reasons to
\nsmile.<\/p>\n
Ah, but Vehement makes the same mistake that many other bands
\nhave made before them – namely, they rest on their laurels and opt
\nto stick to formulatic songwriting instead of attempting to push
\nthe envelope into something more daring and spontaneous. Tracks
\nlike “Inhale The Mist,” “Overtrolled” and “Prepare For War” suffer
\nfrom this fate – and in the end, spells the undoing of the
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
It’s not that Vehement is a bad group, though they do follow all
\nthe steps to becoming a death metal band to the “T.” But they are a
\nyoung band, and I tend to think they are still struggling to find
\ntheir own unique musical roots. If
\nUnbalanced For Mankind<\/i> serves merely as a springboard on
\nthis journey, then Vehement will surely have a solid future ahead
\nof them. But if this is their musical roadmap, I fear that they’re
\ngoing to get swallowed up by the same black hole that has captured
\ncountless other bands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6394],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-36732","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-vehement","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36732"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36732"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}