Vipera Sapiens

This mini-album was released during the time Viper was playing a lot of concerts out of Brazil, in Europe and Asia. That was a good moment to release such thing. There are six songs here:

1 - Acid Heart
This song was the one which became the most famous out of this album. You can even listen to it in the live album Viper released after this EP. It starts with some Iron Maiden-inspired riffs and continues in a fast tempo, reminding me some songs of their previous full-length, "Evolution". But the difference, if you compare it with those songs, is that "Acid Heart" is slightly heavier. Pit Passarel's vocals are nice, neither too melodic nor too aggressive. And his voice has a rockish feeling that fits the song perfectly.

2 - Silent Enemy
It keeps the fast pace of the previous song. Well, it's even a little faster, indeed. The riffs are still heavy and the drumming is even more aggressive, and despite some really rockish moments, this song sounds almost thrash metal-like in some parts. We also have some chorus-like vocals speaking the song name in the refrain - that sounds quite old school, 80's like.

3 - Crime
This song is more rockish than the other two. The drums are not so hard, the pace is still fast, but in a different way. The guitar riffs in this song don't remind those of Iron Maiden, but the guitar solos, yes (you can easily feel the influence). Typical Viper song from that period. Great vocals, by the way.

4 - Wasted Again
This is a new version for the song "Wasted" from the album "Evolution". The acoustic introduction was kept and it sounds similar to the original (there are some differences, of course, but it's basically the same thing). But when the song really starts, after this intro, one can easily notice a difference in relation to the original version: the speed of this new version is some slower. In fact, this song now sounds quite hard rock. And very different in some parts. There are some harder parts (like in the first version), but it's more "commercial" now (in the good sense of the word). The vocal melodies are different too, mainly in the refrain. You can choose which version you prefer, but in fact, both are very good.

5 - Killing World
5 - That's definitively my favorite song in this album. It's not as heavy as "Acid Heart" and "Silent Enemy", for example, but it's very very energetic and exciting. It has a wonderfully rockish feeling, and the refrain is really catchy (well, all the refrains in this album are very catchy). A friend of mine once decribed this song as a heavier version of Misfits and I agree. "Killing World" is the second most famous song in this album and you can also find it in the compilation Viper released some years later.

6 - The Spreading Soul (Acoustic Version)
Well, here we have one more re-recorded song from their previous album, "Evolution". As the title says, now it's an acoustic version. Hey, wait a minute: but the original version was already an acoustic one! That's right, but remember that in that version we had some symphonic arrangements in the background. Now, we only have acoustic guitar and voice. However, apart from that, I don't hear many differences in relation to the original version. Both songs are nearly the same. In the case of "Wasted" and "Wasted Again", as I said before, there were some major modifications. But it doesn't happen here in "The Spreading Soul". Basically, it's the same typical hard rock ballad, just like we had already checked in the previous album.

My conclusion: this mini-album has been out of print for years now and it deserves a re-release. It's worthy and I hope the band will do it some day. All five metal songs and the ballad at the end are very nice pieces of good music, composed with excellent musicianship and enthusiasm. The quality of the recording is perfect too. Pit Passarel is a guy who really has the gift of composing songs which get stuck in one's head. Just listen to the refrains and I bet you will feel like singing them shortly after. I recommend this mini-album for fans of traditional heavy metal and power metal, even though Viper can't really fit in these categories. Generally speaking, "Evolution" was a moderately heavy album and "Vipera Sapiens" could be a compilation of songs which didn't enter that album because they were too heavy for it. But just like I said before, Viper always add rockish elements to the songs and that makes the whole thing quite original. Check it out if you can.