It’s been a while since Vader has graced these pages – I can’t
\nexplain why that’s so, especially after their
\nLive In Japan<\/i> disc got a decent review from me.<\/p>\n
However, I think I might have done the band a disservice by
\nlabelling them as a “death metal” band 18 months ago. Their release
\nfrom earlier this year,
\nLitany<\/i>, has all the makings of a death metal album, to be
\nsure – but Peter Wiwczarek and crew seem to take a different
\napproach when it comes to the lyrical content, and allow the
\nlistener to decide just what the lyrics mean to them.<\/p>\n
It’s an interesting concept – and if the music didn’t tend to
\nblend together into one metallic lump, it would be far more
\nsuccessful.<\/p>\n
I don’t want to sound like I’m ripping the band right off the
\nbat. In fact, there are many things that Vader does that break the
\nmold of traditional death metal, and I like that they’re taking
\nthose chances. Wiwczarek chooses to have his vocals heard more
\nclearly than many of his genre brethren; while they still
\noccasionally fall to the rear of the mix, you don’t have to always
\nsit there with the lyrics to decipher what he’s saying. Likewise,
\nthe band could have taken their speed and thrown the switch wide
\nopen. Instead, while there are elements of speed metal on
\nLitany<\/i>, the focus is more on the instrumentation, and
\nfiguring out how to get the most from the performance, not from the
\nmetronome.<\/p>\n
As for lyrical content, I stop short of suggesting that Vader
\nhas a Christian bend to them, for the simple fact that there is
\nstill a lot of questioning about God present in the lyrics
\n(“Wings,” “The One Made Of Dreams”). Yet, more often than not,
\nthere are suggestions that there just might be a God, and if you
\nwant to believe in him, that’s absolutely fine. Wiwczarek basically
\ninvites people to take their own meanings away from his songs in
\nthe liner notes to “Litany”.<\/p>\n
All of this would work fantastically well – that is, if the 11
\ntracks on
\nLitany<\/i> were a tad stronger. It’s not that they’re bad;
\nrather, it’s just that they quickly tend to dissolve into so much
\nbackground music that the overall power these tracks could have had
\nis diluted. Granted, at 30 minutes, it’s a short enough album to
\ninvest some time into; maybe then is when the force of these words
\nis brought to the forefront.<\/p>\n
\nLitany<\/i> is not a bad album at all. Ambitious, yes, but not
\nbad – and if Wiwczarek and crew could figure a way to translate
\nthat into the music to keep the listener enthralled, then Vader
\ncould quickly become a powerhouse among metal bands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6486],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36890","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-vader","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36890","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=36890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36890"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36890"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}