Vader – Welcome to the Morbid Reich

Hail the return of Polish death metal purveyors Vader! (Being a life-long Star Wars fan the name Vader wins bonus points in my book.) This band has been around forever and in a few more weeks they will be releasing their ninth album “Welcome to the Morbid Reich”. Lucky me, I’ve got a sneak peek from Nuclear Blast to check out.

I first heard Vader fourteen years ago when I picked up a copy of “Black to the Blind” and I’ve been keeping track of them ever since. There are so many different labels you can tack on to the root of “metal” or even “death metal” that I’m not sure which apply here. The music is certainly technical, but I don’t think of it as technical death metal. It’s also brutal, but that doesn’t really seem like a good fit either. It’s not Swedish so I can scratch that one off. For lack of properly descriptive adjectives I will just stick with death metal. They’ve been around long enough to earn that badge and not have to be saddled with any other labels.

I really like how this album sounds. Vader, in my recollection anyway, has never been one of those death metal bands that are completely unintelligible and everything is piled on top of everything else in an amorphous shit-mass. It is death metal, but it’s properly groomed and put together. So it’s not like they needed any real improvement in this area, but be that as it may, I think this album has an even better sound quality to it than the last. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but it just sounds good. Strictly from a production sound standpoint it reminds me of “Reign in Blood” which is a good sound to have.

This album has it all. It’s fast, it’s heavy, and it has got killer riffs and leads. It has large almost symphonic moments. Piotr ‘s vocals are always harsh and intelligible but deep and oh so appropriate. I don’t know how else to put it. If you are not a yet a fan of Vader, you should be. This new album is a great excuse to check them out. Learn the power of the dark side!