Album Reviews : Vendetta of the Fallen – The 13th Day

I initially picked this EP up because it the band name had “Vendetta” in it, and it made me think of one of my favourite movies, V for Vendetta. Completely irrelevant to the band and their music, but I previously knew nothing about the Sydney groove metal outfit and their debut EP.

Among other first impressions, Vendetta of the Fallen play quite an identifiable and clear style of metal. These guys deliver, in an unrestricted manner, tones along the lines of Lamb of God and Machine Head, with perhaps the occasional melodic and more modern sort of, for lack of a better term, hardcore edges thrown in. These guys have a pretty clear message of “Heavy, fast and ready to crush your spine…” if you check out their facebook, and this EP confirms that that is quite an appropriate nutshell for them. You won’t find soundscapes and dark, brooding aural atmospheres anywhere here.

The production reasonably scratchy and a little thin and flimsy, but it gets them by like an old reliable car. One aspect it does manage to capture is the rawness of the music and playing, which very much suits Vendetta’s music. I couldn’t imagine crystal clear, overproduced, euro-metal heavily layered production working for these guys; their variety of metal is very much to the point, and the production, whilst a little thin sounding in the drums and guitars, reflects and compliments this aspect of their music, which is better than having production that tries to fit square pegs in round holes.

The first two songs come in with some good, solid energy and heaviness behind them, confirming Vendetta’s facebook caption about themselves. I quite enjoy the intro to “Praetoria”, it’s got a very ‘no-bullshit’ aspect to it. The singer comes in with quite an agressive and harsh perspective towards his performance, continuing this no-bullshit aspect the music has created. But it seems to lose steam when it slows down and he comes in with his lower clean vocals. This tends to be a reflection of the album as a whole. It starts out strong, but loses steam and sometimes it doesn’t really go anywhere;  not quite keeping the energy and initial impression going for an entire song. Riffs tend to blend together and sections begin to stop standing out from one another as the EP continues, some sections sounding a little contrived as if there was a regulatory force that required the songs meld together, almost to a level where some riffs and sections could be interchangeable between songs. “Praetoria” starts out quite strong and stays consistent throughout the song, going through into “Raiden” which continues in a slightly more groovy manner without losing the energy of the opener, but it tends to be comparitively uneventful for 3 proceeding tracks. “Dying Inside” sits nicely as a finisher, however.

I am being quite harsh there, nonetheless, my main criticism is that I’d like to see these guys branch out, diversify, and kind of find their own thing a little bit more because at times I feel as though there aren’t any riffs that stand out or dare to be different from a lot of other metal bands. It’s not like these guys are playing a particularly obscure style of metal.

That’s not to say these guys don’t have potential. All the right elements are there for quality songwriting, it’s just they’re not quite coming together yet, and maybe I’m being quite harsh seeing it’s their debut EP. I support these guys, I think good things will come from what they can create, it just needs a little more refinement. It’s very much a solid, consistent first release and it definitely shakes things up a little and lets people know who they are and what they’re all about. I look forward to their future releases. 6.7/10

Band: Vendetta of the Fallen
Album: The 13th Day EP
Year: 2010
Genre: Groove/Heavy metal
Label: Independent
Origin: Sydney, Australia
http://www.myspace.com/vendettaofthefallen

Track listing:
1. Praetoria
2. Raiden
3. Six Hours
4. Wreckoning
5. Dying Inside