Vulture – Sentinels
April 12th, 2024
Thrash Metal
Metal Blade Records
Dortmund, Germany
I was first made aware of Vulture last year when I discovered their record Dealin’ Death on a YouTube channel dedicated to the new wave of old school thrash metal, and while I didn’t review that record on this blog it certainly left an impression on me, making me eagerly await whatever Vulture would do next. Lo and behold the band would come out with another album, the fourth in their discography, that is indeed another copious offering of old school thrash metal that sounds like it was ripped straight out of a time machine.
Right from the get go this album wastes absolutely zero time punching you in the gut, skewering a hole through you, and ripping out your insides so you can die from disembowelment. “Screams from the Abattoir” perfectly sets the stage for everything that’s to come on the rest of this record. High pitched screaming vocals are joined by falsetto wails along with razor-fire guitar riffage and drums that careen forward with the speed of a thousand cavalry horses. This whole record sounds like a supercharged atomic laser beam ready to rip through the hull of a battleship.
Vocalist L. Steeler takes centre stage for much of this record, with his brand of high octane, absurdly raucous vocals coating this record like the gleam on a freshly sharpened blade of steel. His vocals are a bit in between harsh and clean. Much of the singing on here has a melody to it, but the way in which he sings is so damn aggressive and in your face that the melody sometimes gets lost by just how wild and unchained his voice is. He reminds me so much of the thrash singers of yore, like Tom Araya from Slayer or Dan Beehler from Exciter, with the way he puts so much rasp into a melodic voice while also interjecting absolutely chaotic banshee wails across the entire record.
The riffs from guitarists M. Outlaw and S. Castevet, and bassist A. Axetinctor (amazing stage name) are some real fucking old school shit. This is the kind of metal that you want to blast while going way too goddamn fast down the highway, burning rubber with babes in the back seat and a machine gun turret mounted on the rooftop. Everything about the guitar playing on this album, from the way the tone enunciates the old school vibe, to the composition of the riffs, to the absolute ripping of the solos, makes this record feel like more than a blast from the past. It feels like a piece of metal that was lost to time, recently re-discovered and pulled into the modern age.
Of course that’s to say nothing of the drums, provided by G. Deceiver. The drumming on this album is not always about embracing speed. Deceiver has a way of embracing slower to mid-paced tempos while making them sound like they’re somehow way faster than they actually are. It’s impressive. Still, the drumming on here reminds me so damn much of Annihilator, especially the early stuff, with the way that they charge forth at a steady pace, offering tons of creativity to the structure of each song. When Deceiver does decide to go fast he rips it just as hard and fast as any of the thrash greats from the old days.
The production on here, done by recorder and mixer Marco Brinkmann and masterer Patrick W. Engel, is flawless. Like I said earlier, the way that this album sounds makes it feel like it’s a perfect representation of the way that thrash used to sound back in the 80’s, before bands like Testament and Overkill decided to get all big and bombastic with it and rip the raw heart out of what made them so great on their earlier albums. This right here is how thrash is supposed to sound. It’s raw and aggressive, not plastic and weak.
Vulture have made what is easily one of my favourite thrash records of the year with this new release of theirs. Sentinels took me a while to really come around on but the more I listened to it the more I realized just how damned good this album is. Thrash is a genre that is often maligned these days because so many bands are just regurgitating Metallica riffs or, worse yet, just doing the same shtick that Municipal Waste have been doing for over two decades now. Vulture is here to breathe new life into a genre that desperately needs it, giving us songs with infectious riffs and zero reprieve.
Final Verdict: 9/10
Awesome
Favourite Tracks:
“Realm of the Impaler”
“Draw Your Blades”
“Where There’s a Whip (There is a Way)”
“Gargoyles”
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 