METALLIAN - Vader

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Reviews

VADER - REVELATIONS - METAL BLADE
Congratulations to Vader for again demonstrating its complete allegiance to Lord Death Metal. Peter and the rest of the group seemingly watch bands come and bands go while Vader marches on with one heavy and strong album after the other. Revelations is a good album. Blast beats, substantive lead guitar work, a full sound and every other ingredient needed to make a death metal album is here. There are a couple of English language mistakes like "Another land, another see" or "worms gives everything" which one would have hoped they had proofread. Otherwise and on the song front Epitaph (For Humanity) begins with a Slayer riff and is a controlled vintage Vader song. The song immediately establishes how Revelations is an above-average death metal album with all the attributes one would expect from these Polish deathmeisters. The sound is full, the vocals gruff and angry, the riffs complete and the lyrics sacrilegious. When Darkness Calls begins with a Sepultura-like riff before enjoying a main melody reminiscent of Demigod. The Code has an action-packed guitar/drum inter-play. The Revelation Of Black Moses is a slower song with great depth and impressive lyrics. Most death metal fans know Vader and they will be glad to know Revelations is another accomplished album. Those who haven't looked into the band should do so. Vader 2002 is one of those cases where all the elements have come together to create a wonderful album.

VADER - BLOOD/REIGN FOREVER WORLD - METAL BLADE
No band writes parables about the imminent destruction of the Nazarene, filled with mad riffing, exploding solos, abused tremolo bars and manic blast beats like Vader. Metal Blade has put two of the bands EPs (one older, one newer) together and issued this 16-song CD as an EP as well. It should make Peter happy. Fans should double check the song listings to be on the safe side. Several of these songs have been released on each continent before. The exceptions being tracks one and two which are from this last June and incidentally have mixed the guitars way low behind the drums and the vocals.
The songs are pure Vader and fans will not be disappointed. The exception is the usual spam of cover versions of course, with Vader's rendition of Judas Priest's Rapid Fire registering as truly offensive. Enough with these stupid cover songs already. Otherwise, speed, death and violence fanatics can't go wrong with this. - Ali "The Metallian"

VADER - IMPRESSIONS IN BLOOD - CANDLELIGHT
Vader is officially twenty years-old this year, which just adds to the sense of awe the Polish death metal band garners given its consistency in the realms of all things heavy, fast, brutal and godly. Impressions In Blood is a good album in the sense that the band is still delivering its extreme brand of metal without compromise, but it is also a great album because it proves that death and black metal bands do not need to yield to commercial pressures or old age in order to be successful. Simply put, Impressions In Blood is replete with crushing speed and heaviness. The lyrics condemn heavenly fables and sing the praise of truth and honesty. Peter’s voice is as garbled as ever, while the ripping guitars, blasting drums and vicious sound affirm Vader’s vision of art.
Nonetheless, several noteworthy points should be addressed. Impressions In Blood does allay recent fears that the band would be adopting a slower tempo. This notion was given credence because of the appearance of slower songs on several recent EPs and LPs and Peter’s work in his side-project. The album is largely high-speed, but songs like Predator do slow down. More ominously, violins and keyboards seem to be creeping into the band’s compositions. Be it the intro, the aforementioned Predator, the song Helleluyah!!! (God Is Dead) or the album’s last song The Book the cursed instruments have found a home with Vader. Peter and company would do well to leave infantile experimentation and commercialism where it belongs: on a Dimmu Borgir album. Having said that, chanting Helleluyah!!! (God Is Dead) sounds like a great way to cruise down a boulevard somewhere down in Georgia. Whether anyone would notice the comparison to Lordi is another matter. Furthermore, would anyone note the song Red Code and the similarity of its line “Red is the code/The code is red” to Napalm Death’s album of last year The Code Is Red... Long Live The Code?
Vader’s Impressions In Blood is not only a great album in its own right, but also heartening for fans who had of late fretted whether the band will ever record another album like 1995’s De Profundis or 2000’s Litany. - Ali “The Metallian”

VADER - XXV - REGAIN
One cannot be certain why exactly bands do it, but next to being fronted by a woman who cannot sing were her life dependant on it the biggest trend on the heavy metal circuit currently is rerecording older material with the aid of a new production and newer line-up. Be it Exodus, Dimmu Borgir, Anthrax, Kam Lee, or Vader now, bands are reaching into the vault to re-release their back-catalogue. In the case of Vader, the situation is even worse. Many of these songs have appeared on albums more than once.
XXV is the celebration anniversary release for the Polish death and thrash metal band. Spanning two discs with an emphasis on older and vintage songs XXV is rerecorded with a tighter and better sound, as well as a paragraph putting the song into context in the album’s jacket. Does the mean justify the end? Not at Metallian Towers. Nevertheless, the album packs in familiar and unfamiliar songs like Chaos, Dark Age, Sothis or Dark Transmissions and Fear Of Napalm. The whole thing is riddled with Peter/Piotr’s trademark throaty growl, rattling blasts of drum and screeching guitars which will achieve what they want, if not through music and lyrics, but through cacophony. The keyboards are sadly present on songs like Reign-Carrion or Kingdom, which is lamentable, but the style remains pretty uncompromising. The bass drums have Vader’s usual thin sound, but that is more than compensated by a warm and heavy snare production. A couple of oddball songs feature guest appearances including the discs’ stranger inclusion, which is a cover version of Kat’s Wyrocznia with Roman Kostrzewski on vocals.
Years have gone by and Vader is still at the very extreme end of the metal scene. With all of the members sidelined XXV is a tribute to Peter for being the last man standing and still pushing the envelope of speed and heaviness. - Ali “The Metallian”

Interviews

VADER! The world itself conjures images of evil, power, and foreboding; where else does one find stronger imagery of evil and power than in the musical realm of death metal? An appropriate name, therefore, and one that ultimately the Polish combo can stand up to. Following the release of The Ultimate Incantation on Earache Records and two tours in Europe and North America, the band, led by frontman Peter, is back and ready to move again with a slew of new releases. – Ali “The Metallian”

METALLIAN: Explain how Vader came to sign with Earache Records, and how were the sales of the resulting album, The Ultimate Incantation?
PETER: Earache was the best for us and our music, so we chose them. I don’t exactly know how the sales were; just in Poland the sales were about 15,000. The new edition is still selling well. I suppose we’ve sold around 15,000 in the rest of Europe too. All in all, I think we’ve sold 50,000 of our record worldwide.

METALLIAN: You’re not on Earache any longer. What happened?
PETER: I don’t understand what happened with Dig and his company. They never believed in us, and that was a big mistake. We have one of the best death metal bands in the history of this kind of music, but we need the normal promotion. Maniacs all over the world are still asking us how to get our products! What should I tell them, man? We need a label that believes in Vader and its power. That’s it.

METALLIAN: You have a number of new releases out, explain each.
PETER: The Live EP is an official bootleg, and our thanks to all the maniacs worldwide. The Sothis EP was first planned for the Polish fans, but we changed our mind due to a big interest for this material abroad. The Reborn In Flames EP is a promo for our upcoming album, De Profundis.

METALLIAN: Having been involved in the scene for some 10 years, and having toured with the following, I would be interested in your opinion on these bands.
PETER: I don’t really like to put my personal opinion, but if you want…
DEICIDE—This band is true death metal. Pretty evil and brutal. One of my favourite bands on the planet. We toured with them and can only say that they’re great pals and real antichristians.
MORBID ANGEL—I like this band a lot too. They have a big potential technically. Altars Of Madness and Covenant are two of the best albums ever done. But why do they sometimes do stupid interviews? Trey is really a great guitarist, but he is not an Amadeus.
SUFFOCATION—Very fast and brutal death/grind. We played with them in the USA and Canada and spent a great time together. I like their first album a lot.
DISMEMBER—I was never a fan of the ‘Swedish sound’ and this way of playing. They are pretty young kids, and I am not sure that they are ready to be the big stars that they suppose they are. But, the first album is good—only the first one in my opinion.

METALLIAN: Peter, thanks a lot for the chance to talk to you. Is there anything you would like to add before we say goodbye?
PETER: We are going to record our second album, De Profundis, in May ‘95, then probably tour Europe with Malevolent Creation and Destruction or Solstice. Of course a promo video clip is important too. It would be great to visit the USA again, but I don’t know what’s happening with TCI. They don’t answer our faxes or phone calls. We still have a deal with them… or do we?

This interview initially appeared in Pit Magazine No. 14.

It is called Revelations and it is a mean album. Death metal of the purest variety, the latest Vader album received an excellent review here and went as far as being Metallian.com's Album Of The Month for June, 2002. In that context, it was clear that we would seek to speak to the band in order to further explore the album. It was not going to be simple though. For despite several inquiries and follow-ups the band was simply indisposed. Weeks passed before Ali "The Metallian" gets hold of main man Peter on a telephone line marred by disruptions, interruptions and technical hiccups thanks to an electrical storm in Poland - 11.07.2002

We were on vacation. It has been nine years since anybody in the band had any free time or vacations. We decided to stop playing and save two months just for us. We wanted to relax and prepare ourselves for the upcoming tours. We are beginning to tour in September and will be rested. We will spend time with families and friends until then.

Peter, the last time we spoke was probably seven years ago. At that time you were dropped by Earache and in the middle of an unsatisfactory contract with System Shock. You were wondering why you don't hear back from your American tour agency and felt rather disappointed. Fast forward to 2002 and Vader is on Metal Blade, touring constantly and generally doing well. How do you account for the turn of events?
It's really hard to say Being a musician makes it difficult to say what was the reason, why we are successful and what happened. The reason is we are very busy guys. We like the metal scene and we still have the same passion as in the beginning. I think that is the main reason.
Furthermore, we have a very good relationship with our manager Mariusz. He has been our manager since the beginning of Vader. You can say we have built the Vader empire together. We have a familiarity between the band and the manager. That is really helpful. As usual cooperation is better than a competition with people and bands. We just do what we like to do and what we want to do and we work pretty hard for what we have. That is my opinion.
The situation is far from good in North America. Of course the situation has turned to better since we signed to Metal Blade, but if you talk about North America there are still problems. This I can't understand and hope with Revelations the situation improves.

What problems are you specifically facing in North America?
For example the Reign Forever World EP was not released for the North American maniacs. I can not understand why and finally after long discussions the American office of Metal Blade decided to put it as bonus tracks for Revelations. It was not easy though. I think it would be much easier if the record company would be more open to what the band and manager offer because we are not going to rip off anybody - especially the record company or the maniacs. We want try be available in North America and that's the only reason! Cooperation... a very important word and shouldn't just be a word. It is very easy to talk about it, but nobody understand what it means.

On the good news front comes the report that Revelations is charting in Poland. Is this important and substantive or merely a marketing story?
This is more like something you get on our website. Bands like Vader in Poland are not welcomed by the media. We are in a far better situation since we play so much outside Poland compared to the rest of the metal bands. The situation is slowly changing for the better. We play more in America and Japan and have become more popular outside Poland. Now we are trying to open minds and open eyes and ears for the rest of the metal bands with the Polish mass media. I think Vader helps metal bands because, we are different from pop bands, but there are still millions of people who want to see or hear bands like Vader on TV and radio stations. We have changed the situation a little bit. - just a little bit.
It is not that important to us as a metal band, but is important enough to the scene and other metal bands to put it in our news and information section. We feel like we are part of the metal business, but not part of show business. What we do we do because we love it. It is a big success to be professional one hundred percent. To be a professional musician playing in a death metal band is not so easy anywhere in the world. If we can have any type of success then we can say something.

Focusing on Revelations, one sees that the cover depicts a demon who is smashing two cathedrals. Firstly, which cathedrals are they and more importantly is the cover symbolic of the September 11, 2001 events in America?
There are many symbols in the music, in the lyrics and also on the cover. I shouldn't, and will not, explain the symbols because imagination is an important key to the art created by Vader. It is one of the most important things for us. The human race is losing its imagination and that's why we try to keep imagination alive.
The symbols are pretty clear. You can see the churches, but others may see towers. What happened in Manhattan last year is probably the main influence to think about Revelations, to record the album and to make it sound the way it sounds. What happened after the attack, when humanity thinks about it and the prophets, apocalypse, the human race and its end were the main impulse to record such an album. This is the apocalypse and the album is pretty apocalyptic. That's why the cover reminds one of the apocalypse and is taken from the old books about the devil, the beast destroying symbols of religion which is a part of humanity. It depends on your imagination though and that's why so many people can see so many pictures looking at that cover. That's good and that's why I am talking about imagination as the main theme to understanding Vader.

The album was initially billed as being called Epitaph, yet emerged as Revelations. Why did you change the title?
I changed it to make the apocalyptic feeling stronger. The work 'revelation' is more strongly connected to the end and the apocalypse. It better explains the feeling of the album at the last minute.

Aside from the title, the band's line-up has also undergone a change with former Hunter bassist Simon replacing Shambo. Why is Vader experiencing line-up changes between albums?
To be a member of the band means you have duties and you have to respect some rules. First you have to respect people, the listeners. When you decide to be a part of a band like Vader, it means to suffer (laughs)...OK, maybe it's not a torment, but the price is you have no time for yourself and you have to pay attention to the band and spend time with band members for more than half the year or more. You look at the same shitty faces all the time and not everybody can stand it. The problem with Shambo started two years ago and I tried to explain it to him in detail. It's not a must to play in a band, but if he decides to do that then he must respect some of us. He forgot about that. He forgot that as metal bands we play for the people. He lost control and he lost respect. That was why I had to say 'hello' and then say 'goodbye' to him. Now with Simon in the band the atmosphere is refreshed and we feel like friends and you can hear it and see it. If you see us on stage you will know what I am talking about. We have to feel fun with what we do and lately we lost that, especially me, because I had to explain the whole time things and that was a problem and we finally got the band back together.

If you were given the task of writing a review of your latest album, then what would you write?
For me it is pretty natural. I can not explain how or why. I know I want it and I am pretty happy doing it. I am more happy knowing more people are hungry for it - for Vader. I am not like an engineer who can talk about Revelations.

There are two songs from the album which I would like to highlight. One is the action-packed The Code and the other is Revelation Of Black Moses which is slower and enjoys a great vibe and depth.
Those two songs are pretty different compared to the rest of Vader's creations. The Code has like a classical heavy metal riff. Interestingly this is one of those riffs I wanted to save for my project Panzer X. I never had the time to release it though and finally decided to release several of those riffs on a Vader album. That's why you can find them as different, especially compared to other albums like Litany.
Revelation of Black Moses is a different story. This song was written for the Black To The Blind album (of 1998) and because I knew it would be a slow and long song wanted to keep it for later. It has a special atmosphere and an apocalyptic feeling and so it was ideal for Revelations. That's why it was a timely one and I used it at the end of the album as a conclusion. The song is long and has three parts.
Many many many maniacs already love that song. At first it surprised me, because Vader usually is about blasts and fast and something absolutely different. I am happy because it means that our fans are open for not just blasts, but brutality with different elements.

Why is this Moses black? Having read the lyrics you seem to be referring to the historical Moses of Egypt.
One more time, no explanations about anything you feel, read or listen to with Vader. It's your mind, your feeling and your imagination. It's your world and that's very important. This is why I never explain my things. Each story has an influence of course, but I don't want to sell my picture. I don't want to steal your picture and want to give a chance to you and everybody to create your own. It's like reading a book which is something different than watching a movie. I want to be a book and not a movie.

Peter, why are there different versions of the album in each territory. You have opted to release different tracks on the Polish, Japanese, digipack, etc. versions.
We have recorded about an hour of music and I placed just thirty minutes on the regular edition and the rest of the songs were spread among the record companies. So our Polish label got a special track, same with Metal Blade and same with Japan. That's why the album is not 55 minutes long, but just 35 or so. Which edition do you have?

I own the North American edition...
You got the longer edition with three bonus songs and that's good. The North American maniacs finally get the mini-album, because it was bad that they didn't hear those songs.

That is well and good, but the reason you gave is not exactly a good one. Why not give all the tracks to every territory? As it is, diehard fans will have to buy at least three CDs to hear all the songs.
That's not my decision. I can not do anything. This decision is in the hands of promoters and record companies. What I have to do is to record and then my job is done. Then I need to prepare to play live. Of course I am involved with pictures, covers... but how many songs and stuff, unfortunately is not one hundred percent in my hands.

Speaking of playing live, what can you tell us about your next release which is slated to be a live video?
We have already booked a TV studio here to record such a show at the end of the year. This video will be released next year. We already have a DVD with the old material that was recorded on tour with Morbid Angel in Europe. The DVD version has additional stuff which in my opinion is more interesting than the main material. There you get discography, pictures, bootleg shows, an interview and so on. The next video will also include more than just the main live shows.

Peter, to end this interview will you give the readers your opinion of the scene and how you perceive the bands of today?
I never like to talk about my opinion. That's my way. I respect anybody who tries to do anything. I am sorry but that's me (laughs). I try to be pretty open to everything which is happening in the music scene, but of course sometimes I should be... because there are too many real shitty bands. The problem is in them because they think they are the best in the world! The basics should be cooperation and not competition and this is a natural selection. Somebody who doesn't understand the meaning of music and the rules will disappear in one or two years. That's why an opinion is not necessary - that's natural selection.
The problem in the scene is this concept of cooperation we mentioned before. I am from the old school and I remember... several years ago something bad happened and there started a stupid war inside the metal scene. You know, like thrash against black against death and that was pretty stupid. I think it's over, or almost over and I am pretty much happy, because metal is metal and we got enough enemies around who will never understand that music. We should be together.

Singer/guitarist Peter, second guitarist Mauser, bassist Simon and drummer Doc will begin a whirlwind world tour in September. Revelations is now available at better record stores worldwide.

If you enjoyed this, read Sacrifice

Vader