Good Songs marred by disgraceful production. – 75%
caspian, December 19th, 2006
Vlad Tepes are kinda weird. It’s a band that, even though no one knows anything about them, they are legendary, almost mythical, in fact. The complete lack of knowledge and the absurdly limited copies of their demos make this band a lot more mysterious and interesting then it actually is. Admittedly, I haven’t heard any of their other stuff, but while this is decent, I wouldn’t bother trying to track this down, as it’s not that great.
For the most part, these guys play a fairly rocking style of black metal that to me sounds a bit like early Bathory, but with far worse production. (I’m a black metal n00b, so that may not be entirely correct). Seriously, the production is terrible- I can’t understand why anyone would want to sound like this. It sounds like someone put a microphone a few hundred metres away from their rehearsal room, and then removed as much top end as possible from the resulting recording. It sounds HORRIBLE. Luckily, the music is pretty good. While the guitar is often only barely audible, there’s plenty of good riffs. Untitled 3 has some real nice metal riffs that are extremely headbangable, Untitled 2 has some sweet black metal riffs that are strangely melodic but also dissonant, and the final song is just full of strange, mind bending guitar work that the whole family can enjoy. The general guitar work is real solid- Vlad Tepes can deliver the riffs, mood and atmosphere very well.
It’s a pity about the vocals then. Basically, whenever the vocalist goes all high and screaming, it’s really good. It’s massively powerful and primal- the power of his yells just whack you in the face. Unfortunately, the rest of the vocals are lacking a fair bit- basically, they don’t sound as huge as the screamed ones. Luckily the screamed ones are fairly good.
This is a pretty cool black metal demo, really. It’s nice and heavy, with some sweet riffs and when the vocals deliver, they’re really good. Still, It’s not worth paying $300 for. Download, if you can (email me if you want it, maybe..?) or buy, because I think it’s been re-released recently. Anyway, a solid slab of black metal, with the kvltest production you’ve ever heard.
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