Review Summary: The best album in years, a decade at the least
A violent and relentless journey though space and sound with all the technical proficiency and endless cascade of riffs anyone could ask for. The story follows an isolation subject, lost in space and thought to be dead, lose his his mind and rise to power of a tyrannical space empire only to fall at the end; there’s so many lyrics crammed in and almost feels like there aren’t enough to fully grasp the grand concept Vektor was striving to achieve. The vocals are visceral and flesh tearing, the uptuned guitars will lacerate your mind, forming a perfect whirlwind of brutality, even if it’s not particularly “heavy” for “brutal metal” standards. The drums lack a large amount of blast beats and instead provide us with technically to be impressive rather than unbridled ferocity. The production is crisp and clear but still has the bite to it to not lose your grip with too much gloss.
This album was a such a gargantuan effort and it pulled it off exceedingly. The album is so massive is makes you feel small in comparison, with hanging chords over a bit of a bursted chugs, it can invoke a sense of dread or a sense of epic overcoming and power depending on how you listen. The way the band uses a choir in tracks “Charging the Void” and “Recharging the Void,” and the clean vocals in “Collapse,” as well as short intro track “Mountains Above the Sun.” And yet again, the short, moderately slowed section of previously mentioned “Charging the Void” that provides a shockingly dense atmospheric moment within the first half of the song. All of this ensures that there are elements and moments that allow the fury to rest and to breath, to not become pure monotony; the contents are already perfect, but these small and seemingly frivolous additions breathe much more life into the music than one would first believe.
