Vader - Litany
Review: Moving from a rolling organic rhythm using longer duration phrases Vader break their trademark psychedelic ambient metal into shorter blasts of motion separated by broken pulses of rhythm and structural shift as seen in the last album, here changing their Slayer-style fast strumming atmospheric assault into a series of impact oriented and precise speed riffs, rippling through both melodic intervals and sheer structural broad interval motion in the style of simple grindcore or death metal.
Sliding tone centers remain within a fixed range and rely on thematics for expression in the style of "South of Heaven" from Slayer, having exhausted much of the broader motion which shifted tones through a cycle of harmony, creating instead a highly textured pattern series of resolutions to the same interval between notes. Within the texture there is an excellent study of how to balance lead playing against the flow of power chords in a style designed to use harmony to illustrate a melodic space never reaching its resolution with the surface behind it. Constant dissonance amplifies the tension inherent between the rising discovery and shuddering conclusion of each phrase.
With a developed sense of approximation that allows each gesture to hit a mean of proportion and aesthetic, this music merges the rigid and architectural extremes of metal with a pop sensibility that is immense in its focus and rhythmically engulfing to the listener. Bouncing rhythms from three generations of metal rise to staff these heavy armaments of collision against gratifying, speeding rhythm interlaced with nerves of melody. As a surviving evolution of the ideas presented on earlier albums it succeeds, and offers more complexity and direction than the previous Vader work.