VADIAT - Spear Of Creation
May 6, 2023, a year ago
(Redefining Darkness)
I was sold with the ex-Mortician tag Cleveland's Vadiat carries with them, although the sounds on display here have very little in common with that legendary grind crew. Here, Vadiat offer a sophisticated take on death metal, one that showcases glory-ride guitar work (see “Father Impaler”) and tons of melody, but not at all in a tired sense, more like how classic Amorphis songs would utilize melody.
We've also got a guy from Ringworm and Shed The Skin in here, but, man, none of these other bands prepped these guys for this stuff, but they sure do pull it off, as tracks like the raging, old-school DM “Shadows Devine” or the huge Peaceville Three doom offering “Silenced Cries” prove. Really, the band flies around between different sounds with ease: the old-school death metal rager “The Entity” would fit in nicely on the Grindcrusher compilation, while “Quarter Moon Chaos” gets close to trad-metal turf, especially come guitar solo time.
But despite all the genre-jumping, this is really a death metal album in spirit and at its core, Vadiat delivering a majestic and classy (see? Nothing to do with Mortician) record that offers many rewards, including a cool cover of Trouble classic “Pray For The Dead” to close things off.
