Let Us Pray

I imagine it gets pretty damned cold up in Rhode Island. The band photos included in Let Us Pray all show the band members standing in snow, which seems quite fitting to the sound of the music. It has a dark, cold atmosphere. Coming out in 1992, as death metal was really growing and starting to get bogged down with uninspired bands, Let Us Pray forged its own sound, rather than trying to be another Morbid Angel, Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, etc. Vital Remains did not concern itself with trying to be faster than everybody else or even as fast as everybody else. Instead, the band focused on making darker music. I honestly can’t really think of another album that really sounds all that much like this one.

The difference is noticeable pretty much right from the get-go. The album kicks in with the mid-paced, somewhat acrobatic riffing of “War in Paradise”. The tempos vary throughout the album quite a bit, from slow to fast, but the songs seem to generally favor a mid-paced tempo. This allows the riffs to have a more menacing feel to them. No matter how sinister a riff is, if you play it too fast, it just sounds fast and loses that evil sound. The drumming adds to all of this by being interesting without trying to be the star of the show, instead focusing on fitting the music. There is also some use of keyboards in various places throughout the album, sometimes just to accent certain moments here and there and sometimes to create atmospheric intros, such as before “Of Pure Unholiness” or “Frozen Terror”.

The production here is also worth a mention. The album sounds excellent, with all the instruments being audible, even the bass guitar(not that it is super loud, but you can hear it). The drums sound pretty natural and the bass drums generally avoid sounding too clicky, although sometimes they sound a bit clickier than at other points on the album. It is also nice that the drums don’t dominate the mix, which does become an issue for me on later Vital Remains albums, but I will get to those later. The guitar tones are heavy without being muddy and covering up everything the guitarists are doing. The keyword for the overall sound and mix on this album is balance. This is the sound of a band working toward the same goal—making a great death metal record.

And the band succeeded at this goal. As to why it isn’t as remembered sometimes as much as albums like Legion, Effigy of the Forgotten, or Left Hand Path I would put down mostly to distribution. In the early ‘90s, you couldn’t just easily order everything straight from the label. Certainly there was mail-order, but back in those days distribution was a much bigger deal. If your local store couldn’t get it, you couldn’t either. I have noticed that Vital Remains albums all seem to be grouped into pairs: the Peaceville albums (this one, released on the Peaceville imprint Deaf Records, and Into Cold Darkness), the Osmose albums (Forever Underground and Dawn of the Apocalypse), and the Century Media albums (Dechristianize and Icons of Evil). Peaceville and Osmose releases, at least when the respective Vital Remains albums were released, were harder to find than Century Media releases, when those two albums came out. I remember only finding Dawn of the Apocalypse at one store in town back when it was new, and I am pretty sure the copy I picked up then was the only copy that store got.

Thankfully, these days the earlier Vital Remains albums are much more readily available, so just go pick up a copy and blast it because it is damn good.

A pretty good picture of how a band will sound can be gleaned from both where and when they came from, and a death metal band surfacing for their first LP in the early 90s in New England will probably have a difficult time avoiding comparison to the heavily consequential New York scene. This scene mostly draws a contrast with their Florida rivals in terms of depth, atmosphere, and overall distance from the thrash metal scene (which is quite a bit further away), thus resulting in a sound that is a bit more murky, distorted, and is a bit more overt in its occultic lyrical pursuits than even the more anti-religion affiliates down south in Morbid Angel and Deicide respectively. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to completely lump Vital Remains into the same group as Incantation and Immolation, especially insofar as their highly advanced debut "Let Us Pray" is concerned.

While quite a bit darker, heavier, and more tilted towards the brutal side of the coin than Death ever came to be, there is an epic and progressive slant in this band's music that is somewhat comparable to what was heard on "Human", as well as some atmospheric quirks and melodic hooks that hint at a slight commonality with contemporary European bands. The song lengths are particularly long for a straight death metal act circa 1992, and each individual chapter in this twisted book is loaded with shifting tempos, contrasting riff ideas that meld in well with the elongated mid-tempo grooves and the occasional thrashing and blasting sections. Even the guitar tone has a somewhat higher end crunch to it that can be likened to Schuldiner's early 90s guitar sound, and the solos tend to match the wild yet restrained technical flow that dominated "Human" and "Individual Thought Patterns", as opposed to the overt King/Hanneman worship that was still heavily popular with the rest of Florida's adherents at this juncture.

But for the occasional keyboard elements that mimick the droning vocal/string character employed on Messiah's "Rotten Perish" and Darkthrone's "Soulside Journey" and the somewhat lighter atmosphere, there is a lot here that is reminiscent of the booming New York scene. The riff set isn't quite as technical as what Suffocation brought to the table on "Effigy Of The Forgotten", but there are several passages where the same flowing streams of notes and elaborate lead fills adorn the riffing during the more frenetic sections of several songs, namely that of "Of Pure Unholiness" and the monstrous thrasher "Malevolent Invocation" (one of the few shorter ones on here). The closest of the big 3 names of New York at this juncture that this resembles is that of Immolation, between the murky atmospheric aesthetic and the mostly deep and demoic vocal character of Jeff Gruslin (though he does occasionally shoot his voice up into a fairly high-pitched wail at times reminiscent of a late 80s death scream out of Schuldiner or Tardy).

This isn't quite able to supplant the wildly hailed albums that came out of New York at around this time, particularly that of "Dawn Of Possession" which is the closest to this stylistically, though this is slightly more ambitious technically. However, it does a consistent job of nipping at all of their respective heels and stands as a rather interesting compromise between two very different death metal scenes that were producing some truly horrific feats of brilliance. It's also one of those albums that is so saturated with ideas that it is pretty easy to discover something new lurking in one or two songs that wasn't really noticeable the first several times listening to it. But for a band that seems heavily obsessed with separated parts, this whole album offers a well connected set of influences resulting in one massive colossal group of extended songs that are about as far-reaching as the endless ocean of blood depicted on the cover.

"WAR! WAR! WAR!" Thus growled Jeff Gruslin on the first track of the first Vital Remains album, officially unfolding the blasphemous musical legacy of the band. Like all other Vital Remains albums (without Benton), Let Us Pray is such a groundbreaking masterpiece.

This album is flawless, from the fantastic musicianship and well-done instrumentation to Jeff's powerful death growls to the countless riffs that seem to smoothly flow into one another. The cover artwork suits the sound of the music and the music is recorded with excellent production quality. The songs are much slower than those of all the other Vital Remains albums, but at the same time it's not a death/doom album. No blast-beat exists on Let Us Pray which may be a bit shocking to a new Vital Remains fan who only listened to Dechristianize and Icons of Evil. Let Us Pray also doesn't have any of the distinctive neo-classical solos that were introduced on the third album. But the album still delivers something grandiose despite how the difference between its style and the other albums are like night and day. This album is loaded with so many riffs and totally unconventional song structures devoid of choruses or anything like that. But most of the riffs are played long enough to let the listener's ears consume and digest the riffs being heard. That's what separates this death metal album from all the others that came out in the late '80s/early '90s. Tony and Paul don't just play a few extremely fast and ear-splitting riffs with a couple melodic moments over and over again like how Tony and Dave did on Dechristianize and Icons.

Jeff's vocals are impressive! He was definitely one of the best vocalists in Vital Remains' entire history. His voice is genuinely vicious and naturally monstrous, as he growls and shouts with pure mercilessness throughout every song, condemning everything he can about organized religion with the lyrics. He's not like many other death metal vocalists in which their growls sound more forced and unnatural. Jeff is the complete opposite of this.

Overall, this album proves that Vital Remains were off to a strong start, with an already developed death metal sound which would later transform into what eventually became the extremely fast, brutal sound of Dechristianize. I'd say this is much more accessible to the ears, and a much more enjoyable album to listen to. It proves that Vital Remains always strove to be original, even from day one.

Back in the mid 90's, I discovered this band, and I must admit that I didn't grasp either Satanism or music very well back then. I got this album, and despite the really cheesy artwork, it was much darker than anything I was listening to at the time, including Morbid Angel, Deicide, or

Frankly, this album scared the piss out of me the first time that I heard it.

"War In Paradise" has a deceptively simple and catchy riff, really heavy when combined with the pitter-patter bass drums. Fuck, this is like Nemesis/Candlemass' "Black Messiah" played as death metal! And the part with Jeff screaming "DIE! DIE! DIE!" is simply great. I can remember blasting this at my very Catholic ex-girlfriend way back in the day to piss her off!

"Uncultivated Grave" starts in a similar fashion, but the mid section is Mercyful Fate meets Candlemass, an unholy, gruesome melody. Once in a while, it'll speed up and slow down abruptly, giving an uneasy touch to its flow. "Malevolent Invocation" is one of the faster tracks on here, pounding and grinding away with some twisted leads. "Frozen Terror" is a more doomy feeling song, evoking images of a nuclear winter, especially with that really creepy intro.

Songs are really long, which turned me off in my younger years, but when analyzed today, they're epic and expertly crafted. There are tons of different moods and shades of darkness, all of them wretchedly evil and malicious. Ah, this is REAL death metal! Take the best parts of Possessed, Hell Awaits-era Slayer, early Death, early Samael, Morbid Angel, Mercyful Fate, Candlemass, Black Sabbath, and roll it into one pissed off bombshell, and you've got this album.

The music is usually pretty simple, with the musicians playing just well enough to give it a rough yet competent edge. The drums sound especially loud and mean, just the way I love them. The lead guitarist is by no means Trey Azagthoth, but he puts in something over the top and tasteful in all the right places. There are a few really bizarre samples thrown in at the beginning of songs, and dark fucking keyboards where they are needed. Now, those are used to some really amazing effect.

Oh, did I mention that the drum sound is probably the best death metal drum sound ever?

Jeff Gruslin's vocals are easily some of my favourite in the whole world of death metal. I know that everyone loves Glen Benton, but Jeff has a very unique growl. It's obscure, sounding like some cacodemon speaking through a person possessed. Almost processed, but it's not, which makes him sound even more sinister. He will throw in the occasional scream, which then comes across very organic and even unexpected. He's got a new band, Godless Rising, so luckily he's still out doing something with his killer vocals.

This was a very organic album, recorded with no triggered drums and very little supression on the guitars. When everyone was recording at Morrisound, getting a nice, even and clean sound, Vital Remains got a dirty, mean and downright wicked sound on here.

Let Us Pray sounds VERY threatening.

I've listened to follow-up albums, and they impress me quite a bit less than this, because they tended to focus more on speed rather than the evil atmosphere.

What’s remarkable about this debut from Rhode Island’s finest death metal warriors is how damn developed their material was at this stage of their development. Yeah, sure the band had recorded their share of demo material, and had some clear scholarship in death metal, but damn!


Right from the nearly eight minute towering “War In Paradise,” these highly composed and carefully paced tracks put the band right alongside Morbid Angel as being among the genre’s most capable composers. Key is guitarist Tony Lazaro, who’s rock solid rhythm guitars underpin the entire sound, as well as providing eerie melodies throughout. Not content to merely blast like maniacs, Vital choose to use grinding speed as a tool to accentuate their songs, not make it their end all and be all. In turn, Jeff Grusin provides a gruff but hardly hyperbolic vocal approach, which works perfectly with this sort of impressively laid out material. Best moment has gotta be “Malevolent Invocation,” which manages to sound like it’s influenced by Morbid Angel (clearly a major touchstone for the band’s approach) without sounding like a rip-off or slavish copy.


Good sound (lousy cover illustration, though) and sterling musicianship add to the overall strength of this release, and it’s far from the last time Vital Remains would offer us such an impressive scripture of death.

Vital Remains has long been one of the forefathers in the Death Metal scene, having debuted in 1989 with their classic "Reduced To Ashes" demo. However, it seems like Let Us Pray, their debut album on Deaf/Peaceville Records in 1992 (Released domestically on Grind Core International), never really got a lot of attention from many fans in the scene. You'd always hear people espousing the virtues of bands like Cannibal Corpse (whose first three albums, in my opinion, can't even come closing to touching VR's debut), and all of the other clone shit bands that were popping up during that time period. Let Us Pray is one of those albums that makes you proud to be a Death Metal fan. First and foremost, there's no "3 minute grind and growl" nonsense tracks on this release. Most of the songs range anywhere from 4 minutes, to 7 plus minutes, which is always a huge thumbs up in my book. Also, VR chose to go another path on their debut. While everyone was singing the praises of corpse molestation, necrophilia, and the walking dead during this timeframe, VR spoke of Satanism from a mythological standpoint. There aren't 15 tracks on here with names like, "I Love Satan," "Satan Controls Me," "Rape Your Local Archdiocese," etc. Judging from the titles (I don't have the lyrics), and other later VR lyrics, the band focuses on a more, if there is such a term, "Mature Satanic Approach." Regardless, it beats hearing, "I raped the nun and severed her head" for the 4 billionth time.

The music on Let Us Pray is tight as can be, and everything falls into place nicely. Jeff Gruslin's vocals are harsh and deep, but way more understandable then many of his counterparts in the scene back then. VR focused more on song structure and an even flow, unlike many bands that just recorded the same song 10 times, slapped a gory cover on the front of it, and hailed themselves as kings of the scene (ironically they now work at Burger King, but that's another story). I only have one small complaint about this release, that being the cover art. It just looks really goofy to me, especially that one guy up close in the foreground, under where the album title is in blood. He looks way too much like Butt-Head of Beavis and Butt-Head fame for my tastes. That however, is a minor complaint.

When it comes right down to it, if you're looking for Death Metal as heavy and as brutal as it comes, and the thought of an album going almost an hour doesn't turn you off, then by all means you need to get your hands on a copy of Let Us Pray. You won't be sorry.

I had heard from a rather credible "source" some 12 years ago that the version of this album released domestically by Grind Core featured different cover art and packaging then that of the one released internationally by Deaf/Peaceville. However, I have never seen this alleged different artwork, so if it does exist, it's rather rare. The original versions of this album are long gone (thankfully found mine in a second hand shop some years back), but fret not. The good folks at Peaceville/Snapper Records have re-released this masterpiece in digipak format as of 12 days ago (ironically a little less then 12 years after it's debut) from this writing. The import price may be a tad high, but this one is worth getting before it heads off into obscurity once more.