Vehemence
Helping the World to See
Metal Balde
Vehemence is an American death metal outfit playing in Swedish fashion. The guitars are machine-guns, the drums are double bass heavy steamrollers and the vocalist is a grunter through and through. Given the high quality of song structure and production value, I’m pretty sure that Helping the World to See will find itself on the Top 10 list of many metal fans by the end of 2004.
The majority of the songs are straight-forward rockers, with the vocalist grunting and growling his way through the muck. The guitarists come up with some really creative melodic riffs, and they execute them with fervor and urgency, making for a really unsettling delivery. The drums are probably my least favorite part of this record. There’s just too much of the double bass blast beat; it becomes overwhelming and tiresome after the second or third song. I don’t particularly like the vocalist all that much, either. I wish he would make some none-grunting noises every once in a while, like a nice scream or yell or something.
For the most part, though, this Vehemence record is expertly performed, and has a lot to offer any metal fan. The songs rock my pants off from start to finish, and the album as a whole is one big waterlogged slab of aggression. This one’s worth checking out, and so is the incredibly drawn cover artwork of a weird monster with an over-sized eyeball in the middle of his forehead.
Metal Blade: http://www.metalblade.com/
