Album Reviews : Vader – Necropolis

Like Motorhead, Vader reviews are ultimately a pointless read for those already familiar with the band. Despite three of the four band members changing last year, ‘Necropolis’, is exactly what you would expect. It’s Vader. With upwards of 25 releases including 8 studio albums, mainman Piotr Wiwczarek knows what he wants and doesn’t stray. In many cases that’s not a good thing but when it’s as good as this, then it’s a different story.

Clocking in at a short but sweet 30 minutes, ‘Necropolis’ is as solid and consistent as anything else they’ve released. There is perhaps a little bit less groove than their 2006 release ‘Impressions in Blood’ and instead a heightened thrash influence, but not much. Wiwczarek’s deep, throaty vocals are as powerful as ever, the guitar solos are undeniably Vader, as is the overall sound and production. On their last few releases in particular, they’re a band that really benefit from a ballsy overall sound; the repetitiveness of the music is less noticeable when you are being bombarded by such a massive sound. Very old-school in their approach there is no overly wanky technical playing, awkward timing or heavy-for-the-sake-of-heavy walls of sound like a lot of modern death metal. Instead there’s a good balance of brutality and melody with riffing that’s as memorable as it is simple, drums that just drive the music nicely, and vocals that are heavy but understandable.

Ignoring “The Seal” and “Summoning the Future” which are both fairly useless interludes (the former in particular), there’s not a bad track here. Most are short with the appropriately titled “Blast” being a particularly fierce 1 minute 50 seconds. “Rise of the Undead” and “Anger” stick with their usual chorus structure: the song title being growled with that extra bit of oomph. While I’ve unfortunately never seen them live, I can see those moments being fucking enormous with the crowd yelling along. The final track “Where The Sun Drowns The Dark” (the longest track and the only one to pass the four minute mark) slows the pace down and is not the album-closer I expected. It’s a bit of a let-down after the rest. However if you get bonus tracks, which my copy doesn’t have, there are covers of Venom’s “Black Metal” and Metallica’s “Fight Fire With Fire” thrown onto the end.

Vader aren’t those bastards that hang around for hours and hours after everybody else has left the party, doing shit-all to make their extra stay worthwhile. Rather, they’re the ones that rock up an hour into the party with enough liquid refreshments to keep everyone going for days (or only a few minutes, depending on your preferred drop), keep everybody highly amused for a short while, and then bugger off leaving everyone reminiscing about hilarious those short but awesome moments. Cheers Vader. 8/10

Band: Vader
Album: Necropolis
Year: 2009
Genre: Death Metal
Origin: Poland
Label: Nuclear Blast/Riot!
myspace.com/vader

Track listing:
1. Devilizer
2. Rise of the Undead
3. Never Say My Name
4. Blast
5. The Seal
6. Dark Heart
7. Impure
8. Summoning The Future
9. Anger <- reviewer’s choice
10. We Are The Horde
11. Where The Sun Drowns The Dark