Vader's “The Empire” Album Review. 

Speed and power. That is what you think of when you hear the new album from the death metal band Vader. The album itself is only a little over a half-hour long, and a good chunk of the songs are under three minutes long. The rest tend to range from three to four minutes long.

The songs themselves, are fast and clean. The riffs and solos are very reminiscent of thrash metal, and the harsh vocals add to the songs without taking over too much. The drumming is extremely clean and precise, as you can hear on the track The Army-Geddon, which has machine-gun like double bass drumming.

The production of the album is superb. The sound is crisp and clean, you can easily detect all of the instruments playing, and they are all balanced perfectly--not forcing the listener to strain to detect any one aspect.

The album itself starts off a little weaker in the beginning. Not the intensity of the songs per se, but the music starts to sound repetitive and the songs start to blend into one another. And with each song only being around two and a half minutes long you don’t get to enjoy the flavor of the songs, before it moves on to the next track.

It’s not until you get to the fourth track, Iron Reign, that the songs start to become longer and they each start to have their own identity. From then on the album is an intense roller coaster ride of shredding and solos.

If you like fast, intense, to-the-point songs, this album can’t be anymore perfect. And there is no denying this album is fast and heavy like a metal album should be. But it is not perfect, or not as perfect as it can be. However, it is easily enjoyable and something that is definitely worth going back and checking out a second time.

Final rating 7/10