Kev Rowland After 37 years leading Poland’s top death/thrash band, Piotr Wiwczarek is showing no sign whatsoever of slowing down. Back with their sixteenth studio album, here is a band who are very polished indeed, perhaps too much? This is all very clean indeed, and while the instruments are delineated, they are somehow muddled together. It is quite a short album, as there are eleven songs at less than 30 minutes in length, and while solid just seems to be missing the mark for me. While there are plenty of death influences in here as well to give it some grunt, there are also times when it feels almost as if they are going through the motions and can’t wait to get out on the road and transform them into something else quite different indeed. The twin guitars on “Emptiness” actually sound more like Thin Lizzy than Vader, certainly not containing the threat I expected at all.

I have listened to Vader on and off for many years, and while this is good, I do not think it stands up against albums such as ‘Tibi Et Igni’, even though it is the same line-up. Mind you, looking at the reviews around the internet it appears I am very much in the minority as lots of others think this is a masterpiece. For me it is crying out for more aggression, roughness and sheer raw unadulterated power, and while that will come through on the live circuit when it gets going again, for now all of that has been subsumed under too many layers of polish and varnish. This needs to be sweaty and visceral, and instead we have something which is far more refined, and not in a good way.

Nightfly Apart from a couple of lacklustre albums – The Beast springs to mind, Vader have been releasing quality death metal for near enough thirty years. A couple of masterpieces – De Profundis and Welcome To The Morbid Reich remain highpoints but now onto their twelfth studio album there’s been no shortage of gems to get stuck into including Litany, Necropolis, Tibi Et Igni and most recently 2016’s The Empire.

Some people felt Vader had gone a bit soft on their last album The Empire. I’m sure they were talking relatively speaking as Vader could never be accused of being soft but I can understand what they were getting at as by death metal standards it was a fairly accessible album. A strong collection of great riffs, quality songs and strong musicianship won me over however and I still rate it very highly. Solitude In Madness should have no problem shutting the doubters up. From the off they hit harder and faster with the aggressive Shock And Awe, a grand statement of intent all over in just over two minutes. Most of the songs are on the short side in fact, but what they lack in length they make up for in ferocity. They still manage to pack a lot into the short time frames making some of them seem longer than they actually are but it’s all over in a mere thirty minutes. There’s no shortage of compelling riffs that soon get under the skin and of course the musicianship is top notch. Drummer James Stewart in particular demonstrating with inventiveness and precision why he’s one of the best in extreme metal. A powerful production is the icing on the cake that really brings this excellent collection of songs to life.

Vader have surpassed themselves with this one and as good as the last couple of studio albums have been I’d say this is their best since 2011’s Welcome To The Morbid Reich putting it up there with the bands best work. When you’ve been doing this as long as Vader have that must take some doing but they attack this stuff with the vigour of a band half their age. Awesome stuff indeed.