Vader - De Profundis
Review: Some time after the above was written Vader's full length album, De Profundis, appeared in my possession and was immediately eviscerated for the cause of its deconstructionist pummel upon the reader. It posits a deconstructive rationalism, a structural viciousness of perception, that takes on a mystical dimension of abstraction despite the derelict nature of its muse-servants, the almighty modern artists Shambo, China, Peter, and Doc.
Whether or not you think this music is sufficiently advanced to make any waves in the guitar-snob world, you will acknowledge the complex structures with chaotic mirroring of expression that unify what would otherwise be a collection of disparate ideas into a song. You hear deconstruction, you feel the real structure emerge, a sublime of idea under impression of chaos.
I don't know if this is conscious; to me this album sounds like a more advanced version of Slayer's Show No Mercy or Massacra's Final Holocaust: it has many fairly random, angry ideas that convey a general spirit. Even the lyrics are deconstructionist, basically phrases unified with rhythmic filler. The phrase is emphasized, and the rest holds the beat in exploded-throat chanting. Vader's work differs in that it builds complex structures out of its unification of dissonance into idea, both in raw sound and in structural opposition within its boundaries.
The music reminds us that all our perceptions are just containers, and brings into play the rare and intricate art of complex recombinance. In this it significantly differs from The Ultimate Incantation, Vader's 1998 debut on Earache Records. There is not as much of the melodic experimentation as on Sothis, but its more deathmetal replacement is very fast strumming of chords or low notes to produce a flowing feel to the music, a blurring of structure, between more definitive moments of the song.
An aesthetic of chaos disguises intricacy in the twisted and self-distorting lead guitar that shoots through layers of riff patterning like a sign flash-lit by lightning. Another expansion on a Slayer innovation, this is not as technical as Morbid Angel but is more noise-y, perhaps a less neurotic K.K. Null crossed with Glenn Tipton.
Production is decent. On Croon Records, Krakow, PL. LASOTY 8. All album notes are in Polish but lyrics and explanation are English. Hopefully an Amerikan label will pick this up, because it kicks ass and there's a huge market for it in Amerika (Pavement did). I think this album could be termed a logical successor to Slayer, because all though it is not so awe-inspiringly outrageous, it follows and develops the logic of Slayer more than Slayer can at this time.