One of Poland’s longest running Death Metal bands, Vader, have returned with their newest full-length, The Beast. Peter, Mauser, and Novy are back, although Doc is absent due to breaking his arm and leg during the recording sessions, but more on that later. What we have here is classic Vader that has even more Thrash riffs than usual, and features mostly fresh song writing.

Vader has been known for, at least in my mind, an absolutely crushing bass drum sound over the past couple of years. Litany has probably one of the loudest bass drum production jobs ever, but it sure gave the potential for any fast section on that CD to become completely muddy and jumbled. Thankfully, and perhaps this is due to the absence of Doc, the drums have been toned down. They still sound great and are very loud and thick, but it’s much better than before and this helps the riffs shine through. And riffs this CD has! Anyone familiar with Vader’s sound will find themselves right at home as the tone of the guitars has been largely untouched. There’s still plenty of Vader styled riffs that will please long time fans but this time around everything seems to be more structured. This goes for the song writing in general as well. The fast songs can still be found on The Beast but many riffs seem more focused and have a strong Thrash mentality to them, even more so than Revelations. This leads to songs that are not only extremely head bang friendly, but also catchier than usual. Perhaps that’s not what Vader fans are looking for, but I found it to give a little extra something to the CD that while subtle, helps separate it from the legion of previous Vader releases. Also, Vader seem to have taken a slight nod from Behemoth, with many songs featuring fast spurts of double bass that end and start back up abruptly, with devastating riffs playing in synchronization. Strangely enough, there's less of the Morbid Angel influence that snuck its way into most songs as a nod to Vader's early style.

Peter’s vocals have not changed at all. He’ll never be among Death Metal’s best vocalist, but he’ll always be one of the most unique. Nobody quite has the same style or delivery that Peter has and there is never any mistaking this band for somebody else, except perhaps Dies Irae, but since they share three members, it’s not surprising. To fill the void that Doc left when he injured himself is Daray, who has played in at least three other Polish Death or Black Metal bands… so he’s been around. He fills in admirably, as I honestly did not notice the difference. Obviously the parts were written for Doc, or written by Doc himself, but Daray does a great job of emulating the style and precision of Doc as the fills are head spinning and the speed and accuracy of the double bass are excellent. Meanwhile the leads from Mauser are typical of his work in Dies Irae and the last few Vader releases. They’re some of better performed leads that rely heavily on the use of the whammy-bar, as I was very pleased with the tone and pacing of every lead.

I feel that long time Vader fans will be very pleased with this release, since the focus and structure of the songs seem well thought-out and fully developed. There aren’t a whole lot of surprises except for one riff that sounds very Black Metal and Peter using clean vocals for about 30 seconds in one track, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is Vader’s 7th release, not counting all the EPs, compilations, and live CD’s they’ve released over the years and I don’t think they’re going to change their sound a hell of a lot anytime soon. With that being said, the song writing is very good as each song stands on its own with only two weak tracks. Highly recommended to current Vader fans and for new fans, start with their earlier releases first as Vader has a lot to offer in their back catalogue.