Album of the year 2016 runner up: Vektor - Terminal Redux
Hereās an album that will be on MOST metal album of the year lists.
Terminal Redux is, to put it likely, fucking insane. Progressive / technical thrash metal with sci-fi theming has never sounded this good. Itās hard to even know where to begin when reviewing this album. Letās try.
Technicality. Blazing, technical guitar and bass riffs that hardly ever repeat more than twice. The guitar solos are batshit insane and technical as hell. Technicality isnāt really something I look for in metal, but Vektor has done it so tastefully here that Iām highly impressed.
Something to note is that they actually tune their instruments up to F. In a genre that is known for its tendency to tune down, this is a very interesting choice. This allows them to get this tight and bright sound on their strings which they use to weave a very ethereal web of sound.
As far as the guitars go, yes, there is a certain mechanic aspect to the sound, as youād expect from a technical metal band. That being said, Vektor sounds pretty organic considering how technical they are. They manage to strike a tasteful balance. It never gets technical to the point where itās like lifeless noise, it goes down that path while retaining the soul.
For the most part, the riffs are blazing fast thrashers that never let up. That being said, there are moments on this album where they slow down. It is a small minority, but it happens. These moments of contrast actually add a lot to the album without taking away from the thrash.
The vocals of Vektor are something that I actually didnāt like at first. To me, the singer sounds like the lovechild of Chuck Schuldiner and Dani Filth. One of these things is not like the other. That being said, the Dani Filth-esque falsettoād black metal shrieks are used to much better effect on here than they are in any Cradle of Filth record. When the vocalist does a pure falsetto moment, a la Angel of Death by Slayer, it always ends up being a moment of total thrash energy that catapults the song forward.
The album is very progressive. The song structures have a lot of twists and turns. A lot of surprises that you wonāt see coming. Some clean vocal parts are thrown in here and there. They even managed to squeeze in a power ballad on this record! Itās actually a very standout track.
If you like prog, tech, or thrash, you really gotta check out Vektorās Terminal Redux. It is one of the best record in any of those sub-genres in years and years and years. Itās seriously fantastic.
The song: Pteropticon
