Here’s another album that caught me completely off guard near the end of the year. Hailing from Arizona, Vektor are yet another young entry into the retro thrash craze, but have a decidedly different approach than most of their peers.
The first thing many will notice before even pushing play are the similarities of Vektor‘s logo and artwork to that of Voivod, and as expected, their influence is present on Black Future by way of adventurous, technical/progressive minded songs and sci-fi themed lyrics. Though as I was told and soon found out for myself, their sound has more resemblance, whether intentional or not, to sadly little known German thrashers Deathrow, namely their Deception Ignored album. There’s also hints of influence from the usual German suspects, though Vektor present it in a more, um, refined way.
The album opening pair of tunes “Black Future” and “Oblivion” make it immediately apparent that this isn’t your usual retro thrash fare – nary a shade of Bay Area presence is felt, instead opting for a more manic and intricate approach rife with unexpected change ups in both feel and pace. These traits only increase as the album progresses, but are most apparent and jarring on the longer songs “Forests of Legend”, “Dark Nebula” and “Accelerating Universe”, each clocking in at 10 minutes or more. The highlight of the album is easily “Forests of Legend” with it’s eerie, clean picked intro which leads into a riff and lead work that recalls Rust In Peace-era Megadeth. From here the song touches upon much more frenzied grounds throughout, and a somewhat psychotic vocal display from David Disanto, moving from his usual high pitched, blackened rasp into an even higher shrieking style and back for great effect. These high-end shrieks are bordering on falsetto high and are peppered all throughout the album.
Though it’s not until that closing pair of “Dark Nebula” and “Accelerating Universe” that Vektor truly reach levels of bat shit crazy. Each of them are still very much in the same mold as previous tunes, but up the ante with more change ups and explore even weirder territory; both breakdown at their mid sections into spacey, bizarre-o land, then return to familiar terrain.
Vektor and Black Future are a breath of fresh air for the thrash world. Hopefully they’ll keep pushing forward the boundaries of thrash as they have with Black Future. From here, their future looks bright, not black.
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Good review Staylow.. I’ve been meaning to check this one out for sometime but wasn’t completely sold on the blend of genres..
on Jan 22nd, 2010 at 07:23cool gonna have to check this out. nice writeup
on Jan 22nd, 2010 at 11:57This is the first album I’ve listened to start-to-finish in a long time. The great variety of progressive thrash riffage just kept my attention for the length of the album. A very good thing.
I think I hear more later period Death than Voivod. The vocalist is VERY similar to Chuck Schuldiner’s higher-pitch screech. And the technicality is there too.
There are a few of those dissonant chord voicings that Piggy used, but much more “Chuck” in this.
on Jan 23rd, 2010 at 07:46I need to pick this album up. I have their debut and have seen them a couple of times live. They’re a very talented young band and I hope they do great things. Finally some good music to come out of the Valley of the Sun!
on Jan 27th, 2010 at 00:40