Terminal Redux

There are two things that always make me uncomfortable: Reviewing albums the moment they come out, and leaving my house. We all have that one friend you watch a film with, and they're demanding explanations for perceived plotholes before the credits have finished rolling. I'm not saying it's impossible to digest media the moment you consume it, but Terminal Redux is a good example of why I personally can't. There's a lot to unpack here, and I regularly take turns between loving its ghoulish complexity and hating its genteel snobbery. Today's the day I finally challenge myself to put my thoughts into words, after Terminal Redux has zoomed in and out of my consciousness for a few years... Eight years? That can't be right... Yeah no, 2016, wow. So that means I'm nearly a decade older than when I first heard this album. Excuse me, I need to go have a crisis.

Okay, I'm back. Vektor's brazen interpretation of zany sci-fi thrash forms the silicone backbone of this album, as you may expect, with 'LCD' defined by a strident barrage of unhinged harmonics and 'Pteropticon' storming ahead with a tremolo riff that sounds straight out of Paradox's Electrify. In fact, riffcraft in general shares an alarming amount in common with Paradox's 'Monument' and 'Hyperspeed Hallucinations'. Terminal Redux is at its strongest when it's at full-tilt. 'Pillars of Sand' is a phenomenon of technical thrash, equipped with an armory of deadly harmonics and pulse-pounding blastbeats that seem to boast a unique fill at the end of every stanza. Its spacy arpeggio solo is perhaps a bit indulgent, but I enjoyed the conscious decision to reincorporate vocals before its finished, adding layers to the frantic atmosphere. 'Ultimate Artificer' is another of my favorite compositions; after some high voltage flailing, its pungent riff wouldn't sound out of place in Hypocrisy's Virus, or if you want to get really obscure, The Dawning of a New Era by Nihternnes.

Unfortunately, this track is needlessly heralded by 'Mountains Above the Sun', and "needless" is a fair way to describe about thirty minutes of this album's runtime. To its credit, 'Charging the Void' consistently surprises me by springing into action after just a few seconds of atmospheric risers. This is a welcome change from Outer Isolation, which felt like it was designed to sate someone's strange fetish for mechanical whooshing sounds. I'm less supportive of the cloying choir of clean vocals, establishing a glaringly obvious bookend with 'Recharging the Void'. At least this refrain punctuates the already-brilliant final guitar solo of the album effectively, putting me in the mind of Hexen's goliath closing track 'Nocturne' from Being and Nothingness.

It should come as no surprise an album so gargantuan would have moments of complete exhaustion, and this is appropriately titled 'Collapse'. This composition is so dross and painfully full of itself, clogged with egotistical acoustics and clean vocals that harmonize like a Carl Sagan barbershop quartet. It sounds a bit like Lunar Shadow's Far From Light, with a key difference being, they had based the bulk of their identity around chilly and ghostly toiling. The tonal shift displayed in Terminal Redux is altogether awkward, not unlike something I'd expect to hear from Arsis during their angsty Scion-sponsored days.

As I mentioned in earlier Vektor reviews, this band got big because they had the guts to craft their sound around the tricky paradigm of cosmic thrash like Obliveon and Voivod. Black Future is a sensational thrash album, and it made a lot of their NWOTM brethren sound as dynamic and engaging as Ben Stein singing 'Bicycle Race' by comparison. From 2016 onward, many more talented bands have since thrown their hats in the ring. Xoth's Interdimensional Invocations, Droid's Terrestrial Mutations, Siderean's Lost on Void's Horizon... All fantastic alternatives with a much greater respect for your time. I don't mind the sound of a psychotic parrot squawking lines from The Dragons of Eden at me, it's the non-stop noodling I'm not a fan of.

By the time Terminal Redux dropped, Vektor was already on a trajectory towards the stars, and I don't just mean the ones out in space that they so love to sing about, but the popularity contest that is American brutal or technical death metal, deathcore, and such. Though they already had two fantastic records under their belts, it seemed like it was this one where suddenly everyone started chattering about them everywhere, placing them on their year's end lists and starting to take it all very seriously. It's not hard to understand why, because the musicianship was formidable, there's a lot of weaponry DiSanto and company could attack with, and they were just plain ambitious when the idea of a technical death/thrash band seemed like an idea that was restrained to Florida and certain parts of Europe in the later 80s and early 90s.

There just weren't a lot of bands channeling Voivod, Cynic, Atheist, Deathrow, old Pestilence, and the like, and these are all components you might hear in Vektor's sound, though to their great credit, they are a copy of none of these. These cats have their own ideas, and Terminal Redux is quite a progressive offering, from the constantly shifting tone and riffing styles, to the ideas like the ethereal backing vocals on a couple of the tracks. This record is an adventure, one in which you don't know where all the turns are coming until you've experienced the entirely a few times over, and that's one of its strengths. Although Dave DiSanto's raspy vocals unify the whole, there's a huge plethora of rhythmic dynamics here, riffing sequences that feel like they took quite some effort to put together with all the instruments, and a penchant for longer tunes that don't ever really grow too tiresome or boring. Is there a bit of self-indulgence and excess? Perhaps, but nothing that terribly surpasses or even rivals many other technical death metal acts or shredders of the past, and it all comes together into a varied assault that largely sticks the landing.

The lyrics are nerdy, excellent excursions into science and science fictional concepts, which can transport the listener to the extra-terrestrial realms the band wants to inhabit, I wasn't paying attention enough to tell if this was a coherent story, but each of the tracks has so much going for it that it wouldn't be necessary. It must be pretty hard to memorize this stuff, so to pull it off in the studio without sounding too artificial is a feat unto itself, and the production is a great complement, crystal clear but honest and never too drowned out in effects or atmosphere that you can't get to the meat of the instrumentation. Terminal Redux does live up to its heights, but it lacked the surprise for me that Black Future achieved, and to a fractionally lesser extent its follow-up Outer Isolation. So this one remains in third place with me, but it certainly feels the most complex and progressive and I can totally understand why others might feel otherwise. Of course, Vektor would hit a wall after this one with the sketchy personal behavior, ensuing breakup and social media shitstorm, so it's a wonder if the band would ever be able to get even crazier than this...certainly the two tracks on the split with Cryptosis do not compare to this material, so we'll have to see if the writing is on the starship walls, or if they can outdo themselves once again with even more labyrinthine song structures.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Out of modern thrash bands Vektor is my favorite. And "Terminal Redux" is without doubt their most progressive LP so far (I hope that one day the band will prove me wrong and surprise us with another long-play). The only way to listen to it is from the beginning to the very end since the entire album tells us a story. This album features fast and complex riffs, exotic chords, amazing leads/solos and, of course, incredible talent of every band member. The sound is very clean and balanced; every instrument can easily be heard.

The guitars are mixed exceptionally. Every chord sounds harmoniously and somehow even the chords fused with tritons (tritons are notes that when played with the first note of a scale produce a dissonance) do not sound dissonant. And, I might add, there are plenty of such chords throughout the album (ie. the chords played during the opening lead in "Psychotropia"). As for the bass, it is audible and sounds really powerful. It doesn't always follow the guitars. Sometimes it's a single note, sometimes a couple, sometimes an entire riff. Sometimes instead of following the rhythm guitar it follows the lead guitar which is a very rare thing. Generally the bass "lives its own life" and the result is truly wonderful. The vocals are, well, David's vocals. They are a bit different than on "Outer Isolation" due to the different mixing. His style of singing is likely heavily inspired by Chuck Schuldiner's vocals on "The Sound Of Perseverance" but even higher. Most part of "Collapse" and the clean interlude of "Recharging The Void" show us his "normal", clean voice. And, last but not least, the drums. Blake Anderson did an astonishing job. There is a good balance between the snare, the bass drum and the cymbals. There is a lot of blast beats considering the fact that this is a thrash metal album. But that isn't a problem for me, they really fit.

My favorite songs are: "Charging The Void" (Its many riffs, all of which are unique, the unorthodox structure, the unequaled songwriting and tens of leads (especially the chorus riff and this) make it a true prog-thrash anthem. Constantly changing, constantly surprising. And impossible to rip off. Even though it's quite a lengthy song, I think it is a perfect album opener that gives me the chills every time I listen to it), "Psychotropia" (It is a song that constantly evolves. At first it is quite slow, then the sound changes into a very curious transition (its time signature is 7/8 which is why it may feel a bit out of rhythm) and then we are blasted with an insane banger. The fast part is likely the fastest on this album. We are attacked with a masterful lead, a harmonized riff, verses, choruses, David DiSanto's lead, interlude and the amazing "solo battle" between Erik Nelson and Frank Chin. After some time the song slows down and ends.), and Collapse (A beautiful ballad. Slow at first, then a bit faster and after almost 7 minutes of clean guitars and clean voice we are hit mercilessly with distorted guitars and David's signature voice. That change was quite a shock when I first listened to this song.)

To sum up, it is a really long album, but the time spent listening to it certainly was well spent. Not everyone will like it but I loved it. Every song is written well. Are there any bad ones? I have to say there are songs I like less, for example "Recharging The Void" for its clean interlude (it is about 3 minutes long and in my opinion it is a bit too long) or "L.C.D." which belongs more to "Outer Isolation" than "Terminal Redux". They are very good but when put together with masterpieces... One thing is certain, this album is worth listening to not just one time, but at least five. If you didn't listen to it yet, do it. The faster the better.

It's strange to say, but the Americans from Vektor has a lot to do with the so-called third album syndrome - a condition artificially invented by the press. But, surprisingly, if you think about it, there is some sense in it. Going sequentially: "Black Future" - a great debut; "Outer Isolation" - keeping the level from the debut; "Terminal Redux" - a style redefinition. Everything is correct. On the other hand, no wonder, the band of David DiSanto would have to be expected for something extraordinary and breaking away from the rest of metal bands, as this band has already got used to.

The new quality concerns a lot more emphasis on progression (there is a lot going on, and most of the songs rarely go below 7-9 minutes), more frequent black metal riffing (in almost every regular track), even higher and more schuldiner's vocals, much stronger twisted, cosmic atmosphere, even more complete production, but also many smaller flavors (such as female vocals, clear singing, outro transferred from the previous album, etc.), which only become appreciated after listening to the album many times. Well, there is a lot to listen to, because "Terminal..." lasts nearly 73 minutes!

Needless to say at this point, the "old" components work perfectly well. The quartet managed to repeat the ultra-high level of the two previous albums, and at the same time, as "Terminal Redux" shows perfectly, it was able to once again show itself from a completely different side and extend this style with extraordinary influences, without losing any sense in this. Take for example "Collapse" (something like a prog rock "ballad" with a more melodic thrash), a buckle in the form of colossi "Charging The Void" and "Recharging The Void" (very inventive and excellently developing in the finale), crazy "Psychotropia" (with a brilliant guitar-bass duel), rushing "Cygnus Terminal" and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" or the most twisted "Ultimate Artificer". Well, as you can easily guess, the above-mentioned highlights are only the tip of the genius that the entire lp hides from the listener.

With the content of "Terminal Redux", it can be clearly heard that the band knew perfectly how to develop meaningfully, and also how not to overdo behind such strong changes. What's more, they created an extremely original and hard-to-beat masterpiece.

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2021/12/vektor-terminal-redux-2016.html

God, this album is annoying. I actually did like this when it was released in 2016 – that just goes to show you what style over substance means. Once I started losing the will to play it just weeks after buying it, I realized what was going on.

Vektor get a lot of praise for their aggressive, technical style, and I can’t say it’s unwarranted from an objective point of view. The dudes know how to play and every song has some ear-catching parts and a few really good riffs. But the issue is that this is almost 80 goddamn minutes of highly intense thrash, which is just too much for this kind of music. If there were more emotional variation it could work, but the guitar playing is solely weedly-weedly ‘look how fast I can shred’ stuff, and David DiSanto’s vocals are a monotone screech that really fucking annoys me. It’s too one-note to last so long. Play any one of these over-seven minute tech-love-fests, and it sounds impressive for the detail and commitment put in, sure. I just don’t need to hear ten of them in a row. Yeah, there are cool riffs – but after like four eight-minute tracks in a row I’m just wondering if there was any point but to show off.

If the vocals were just a bit cleaner or more evocative it might work a lot better, or if the music had more shade and dimension to it. The one song that does try this is “Collapse,” a nine-minute space rock ballad that does actually have real build-up and some attempt at feeling to it. But even that is ruined by the horrible vocals once it gets heavy at the end. Seriously, this guy sounds like a possessed cat screaming. I’m not sure the super-bright production does him any favors either; these vocal styles usually sound better over much darker climes.

And even going beyond that, I just don’t really think the writing is that good on this. Some of the playing is very good, sure. But the riffs, while sharp and played well, aren’t really terribly compelling to me. Certainly not anywhere close to the absurdity and surrealism of classic Voivod like this band seems to get compared to, and it lacks the spontaneous wonder or visceral feeling of Atheist’s old stuff. DragonForce’s early work is similarly high octane, frenzied nonsense, but they had great, solid-ass vocal hooks to rein things in. This album is really kind of vanilla when you get past how fast and intense it’s played – just nothing that meaty or interesting. The band will throw in various parts and changes to the songs, but they sound like the idea was just ‘OK, do something else now’ just because they wanted to keep going long.

There’s a mellow break in the last song where they try and make it sound almost like world music or some shit. Not knocking the effort, but the way it’s done comes off like they just wanted extra points on a high school project for throwing in something worldly-sounding. Look at the research we did, teacher!

I’m not against thrash, not against aggression and not against long songs. But I am sure against bad writing and show-off bullshit. For all the sound and fury on this thing, it didn’t have much to say and didn’t leave me feeling like I’d spent my time well.

Here’s 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. It’s hard to even know where to begin when reviewing this album. Let’s 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 isn’t really something I look for in metal, but Vektor has done it so tastefully here that I’m 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 you’d 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 it’s 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 didn’t 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 falsetto’d 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 won’t see coming. Some clean vocal parts are thrown in here and there. They even managed to squeeze in a power ballad on this record! It’s actually a very standout track.

If you like prog, tech, or thrash, you really gotta check out Vektor’s Terminal Redux. It is one of the best record in any of those sub-genres in years and years and years. It’s seriously fantastic.

Terminal Redux is the sweeping sci-fi metal epic I always suspected Vektor were capable of.

What stands out most to me about this album is how it blends songwriting that could be called "ambitious", "progressive" or even "artful" with a simultaneously unrelenting technical assault. The balance of both sides of the metal coin that Vektor achieve here is one that very few bands have ever pulled off, and the subtle black metal textures just make their sound even more unique and otherworldy.

In addition to the overarching lyrical story, Vektor take some bold musical risks on this album. And they ALL pay off...thousandfold. The purposeful inclusion of things like clean, female and chanted vocals add a layer of tension, build-up and pure climax to Vektor's sound that wasn't there before. These elements are placed so perfectly within the progressions of the songs that they just feel so incredibly natural and impactful. For example, the subdued clean lead vocals in "Collapse" are surprisingly emotive and offer a respite that accentuates the power of the album's grand closer "Recharging the Void", which is surely the Meta Song of the Year 2016 and also, we now know, the final statement of this band as we have known it. The 14-minute thrash opus throws together all of the aforementioned elements that are touched on separately throughout the album into what can only be called an EPIC. Words cannot express my love for the chanted female backing vocal melody near the end, utilized perfectly to forge a sonic bridge back to the album's opener "Charging the Void" and enhance the grandiosity of the biggest moments. The song is a roller coaster through time and space, with highs and lows building up to a climax that explodes into your ears like a star going supernova. The closest comparison I can think of would be the "Fall like a burning star!" section of "Starchild" by Wintersun.

While the epics that bookend Terminal Redux are amazing and innovative and surefire classics, this is not an album that loses much steam in the middle either. "Cygnus Terminal" is interesting conceptually and includes an absolutely beautiful guitar solo that sort of springs forth out of nowhere and unfolds like a majestic tapestry of stars. "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)", "Psychotropia" and "Pillars of Sand" are more traditional Vektor thrashers, fast technical masterclasses chock-full of awesome headbanging riffs and memorable, kickass vocal parts. "Ultimate Artificer", which was a huge grower for me after a few months of skipping it, sits somewhere in the middle, shorter than the proggier songs but with a sprawling blackened climax that hints at the heights of "Recharding the Void" to come. The only song that still does not do much for me is "Pteropticon", which just feels a little forgettable and by-the-numbers compared to all the other extraordinary songs on offer. Without it, this might be a full 10/10 album.

Whatever the future of Vektor may or may not hold in light of the band's recent announcements, Terminal Redux would be one hell of a way to go out. In addition to being Vektor's greatest achievement, Terminal Redux is also one of the finest works in all of technical/thrash metal and 2010s metal. This album should be cited as a classic and influential landmark release for decades to come.

If you’ve never heard of Vektor, then let me be the first to introduce you to one of, if not the best new band in modern metal. Vektor’s style consists of Black Thrash ala Skeletonwitch with a hefty dose of progressive metal and rock, adding up to some of the most complex and thrilling metal music to date. I highly recommend Black Future, their first release, heavy on the black thrash elements, but I exceedingly recommend Outer Isolation, only their second album, and possibly one of the greatest modern albums not only in metal, but in all of music. It’s been a few years since Vektor produced some material, but here we are with the hype train of Termnial Redux, which seeks to defy expectations once again.

The best way to describe Terminal Redux is to call it an amalgamation of Outer Isolation and Black Future. As these things tend to go, Vektor’s first album was somewhat traditional with a dash of the experimental, and their follow up was heavy on the experimental, with little in the way of the traditional. As their third release, Vektor is somewhat committed to a formula, and all that’s really left is if they can keep that formula sounding fresh, and if that formula is still pleasing to the listener.

Terminal Redux is great batch of songs that fit Vektor’s MO, fast black-thrash that bounds away with blistering riffs and face melting solos, with the real treat being the long, complex song structures and hints of traditional prog-rock elements that increase the variety. It kicks off with “Charging the Void” and pretty much doesn’t let up, adding one of my favorite things, operatic vocals to an already kick ass track. Things chug along until “Mountains Above the Sun” gives us a brief respite before kicking us back into “Ultimate Artificer”, which sounds like a track straight off Black Future. Finally, we end with “Collapse” and “Recharging the Void”. Two very interesting tracks, that I’ll revisit shortly.

The grand majority of Terminal Redux feels like a more polished attempt of Black Future. It’s not the grandiose heart-stopper that made Outer Isolation the master piece that it was, but it does go for tech-thrash over traditional black metal blast-beats. Vektor pours tones of riffs into every track, but some often feel unnecessary. One common tactic is to repeat simple chords in a heartbeat manner, to build up some tension and energy, but this tactic is repeated often enough that it can feel repetitive to hear several interludes that mimic each other almost perfectly. That being said, everything else in between is the fantastic space-weirdness that we’ve all been dying to hear from them. More face rippers like “LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)” and “Pteropticon” will have you moshing for days, and maybe I just had more time to like it, but “Ultimate Artificer” is probably one of my favorite Vektor tracks. Those double bass just kick in and I can’t help but screech out, “Ul-Ti-Mate Artificer!”. It’s all good shit.

The only track I found myself skipping was “Psychotropia”. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it was a chore to listen to. Just a weaker, more repetitive track.

And we come to “Collapse”. “Collapse” is perhaps the biggest right turn for Vektor since they started making music. Their black/prog/thrash skills have been noted, but did you expect them to take on… actual prog rock ballads? Well that’s what “Collapse” is. David DiSanto even drops his screams in favor of a more traditional, Rob Halford-esqe singing style. The result is an actual slow paced prog ballad from a band that no one expected a slow, melo track from. The second half of the song builds to a more melodious version of Vektor’s usual style, but it’s still a strange thing to witness. Personally it’s a track I really like. I found DiSantos’ normal singing voice kinda lame, but much like “Ultimate Artificer” it quickly grew on me. Perhaps the average Vektor fan won’t find it as epic and interesting as I do, but fully welcome this new side of Vektor. I am happy that they chose to relegate this style to only “Collapse” and “Recharging the Void”. As much as I like it, I think I would have been disappointed had even half of the LP consisted of it. However, should they choose to implement a track or two like this in a future EP or LP, I would appreciate. And speaking of “Recharging the Void”, it’s fucking awesome. Vektor brings it all full circle, combining the black/prog/thrash, the prog rock ballads, the operatic vocals, it’s one giant, killer combo of everything that not only makes this album good, but what makes Vektor good.

In the grand scheme of things, Terminal Redux is probably Vektor’s weakest album, but that doesn’t mean it does not deserve your attention, and isn’t a damn fine album. Also, try not to forget that this is the follow up to Outer Isolation, an album that is pretty much the Rust In Piece of our time. I think the scale shifts once we bring that up. Terminal Redux is however, a much better version of Black Future, no matter how blasphemous that may sound. Here’s to Vektor sticking around for a while, and all the kick ass music these guys will make for years to come.

TL;DR: It’s fine, stop worrying about it. It does try enough new stuff to be fresh, but not enough to surpass Outer Isolation, but that wasn’t a fair comparison in the first place.

Amongst the deluge of contemporary thrash metal bands, Vektor always stood out for its ability to write music that sounds familiar yet refreshing at the same time. Originally from Arizona, these talented musicians made the wise decision to move to Pennsylvania, a state where so many good American bands seem to be located. Their first two albums earned them quite a following. Black Future was a monster of a debut, elaborating upon riff and vocal ideas borrowed from (past) greats like Voivod, Destruction, Coroner, Death and Atheist. Follow-up Outer Isolation was the logical next step, ironing out a few kinks in the band’s intense sonic attack. Unnecessary to say that anticipation ran high throughout the metal universe when the release of a new record was announced. Fans wondered if Vektor could accomplish what Metallica or Slayer had done before them: to come out with a show-stopping third album and cement a decade-lasting legacy. Keenly aware of the stakes involved, the band decided to craft its first concept album. Quite ironically, it deals with the fortunes of an “isolation subject” who, in some lone corner of the galaxy, stumbles upon a crucial particle which grants humans extended life. With this new discovery, he sets out to conquer his home planet and establish an immortal reign.

The music on Terminal Redux could be described as technical thrash metal. Throughout the album, we are treated with a high-explosive barrage of jagged guitar riffs occasionally interrupted by slower passages. Near-shrieking vocals do a great job conveying the story’s dark and paranoiac subject matter. The rhythm section is wonderfully precise. The bass is nicely-audible and the drums have a pulsating feel for drama. Song structures are elongated, although it is still possible to discern verse and chorus sections. Vektor clearly takes the riff salad approach to songwriting: a great deal of riffs follow one another in rapid succession. Thankfully, they show enough resemblance to create a sense of forward motion. Individual sections build up tension which is periodically relieved through mid-tempo breaks. The best track on here is definitely the closer "Recharging the Void". In the course of thirteen and a half minutes, the band paints a wonderfully diverse picture: a common melodic motif is reinterpreted through a host of metallic playing styles until the song goes into a contemplative middle section. A voice of reason rises above the madness, but the conclusion is inevitable: deceptively optimistic plucking and shimmering melodies give way to an adrenalized rush of thrash riffing. Angelic voices can be heard before the album goes into its death throes and a few stomping passages deliver the final coup de grace.

It should be clear the guys from Vektor poured a lot of effort into their newest creation. Whether you ultimately think this is a great album depends on your ability to empathize with the band’s aspirations. These four Americans set out to write the perfect musical accompaniment to an exciting storyline, which, like the great tragedies of old, still tries to deliver some kind of moral statement. Sure, the whole feels a bit bloated at times, but the strength of the individual components more than make up for any structural shortcomings. To me, Terminal Redux succeeds precisely because of this internal contradiction. Far too much is going on, but in the end, the message is relatively simple. In our postmodern times, so much has been accomplished that it almost feels as if there is nothing left to explore. As artists (and people in general) find it increasingly difficult to come up with something new, they start yearning for simpler times. Yes, life was hard back then, but at least it was easy to desire.

To many, Vektor are essentially carrying the torch of modern thrash metal. It’s a completely understandable claim; the band have released three albums thus far, and each one of them has received a ridiculous amount of praise. The skeptics may deem the group a smidgen too reminiscent of Voivod, but I’d argue that the whole “progressive-thrash” concept is where that similarity begins and ends. Sure, there’s the space theme as well, but both bands deal with that idea in different ways. Whereas Voivod’s music is much more based around panic and confusion, Vektor take a more expansive and otherworldly approach to their atmosphere. That, and raspy black metal-esque vocals add a layer of extreme metal aesthetics to the prog-thrash core of their sound. Either way, whatever you may classify them as, Vektor is basically one of the most acclaimed thrash bands in years. So after Black Future and Outer Isolation, it seemed like they couldn’t take their sound any further, as well as the quality of their music.

I was dead wrong.

Terminal Redux feels like the musical equivalent of being lost in space and feeling insignificant to every star and planet around you. There’s not only an overarching darkness to the record, but such a strangely attractive beauty to it all. This is, of course, despite the amount of intense distortion and fast tempos you’d typically expect in Vektor’s chosen genre. While the beginning of “Charging the Void” suggests a frantic atmosphere to the following album, it’s soon realized that the band are especially keen on inserting moments that let the listener breathe and take in the majesty of the instrumental work. The highly melodic and catchy interlude “Mountains Above the Sun” is a perfect depiction of this, bringing a mellow respite (until the end of the track, at least) after three intense bangers. Speaking of those, I don’t think I’ve heard such a strong three opening tracks in a long time. “Charging the Void” immediately strikes with countless inventive thrash riffs, and before you know it, by the end of the song you’re hearing a goddamn choir singing along with David DiSanto’s shrieks. It’s all brought together by an overall song structure that’s highly progressive while maintaining a headbang-worthy slew of riffs. “Cygnus Terminal” keeps up with the standard of quality with a beautiful clean-guitar introduction and a few moments that somewhat borrow from jazz fusion due to the guitar chords, while “LCD” has an exceptional finger-tapped guitar motif that’s both technically impressive and appropriately spacey. One of the most remarkable things about Terminal Redux is that it never really dips in quality… and it’s 73 minutes long! Quite an astounding feat.

A big part of the album’s appeal is that, with every track, an interesting story is unfolding through David’s dense and complex lyrics. I haven’t been able to fully grasp the entirety of the tale, and the band haven’t totally explained it as of yet, but this is what I get from it: an individual comes to rule the Cygnus regime after rising to power because he found a supposed method to attaining immortality. However, considering some of the lines DiSanto delivers, the character’s views are likely controversial, most notably on “LCD” with lines like, “have them screened/we feed off their disease.” Regardless, the way the story is combined with such compelling instrumentation and vocals makes for a record that’s simply addicting to listen to. This is especially true of faster-paced songs like “Ultimate Artificer” and “Pillars of Sand,” which generate a sound more akin to classic 80s technical thrash while retaining the rest of the album’s songwriting complexity. Also, despite the tightness of the instrumental work, there’s a hint of irreverence once in a while; the climactic solo in the middle of “Pteropticon” combines classical elements with a touch of seemingly random dissonance, tapping into something more chaotic. This is one album that’s incredibly entertaining to listen to while reading the lyric booklet, if mostly to see how each stanza works in conjunction with the musical accompaniment. Of course, I can’t forget the other musicians alongside David DiSanto who make all of this possible. Erik Nelson blends with DiSanto effortlessly, and brings some experimental and even jazzy guitar leads to many of the tunes; the rhythm section of Frank Chin and Blake Anderson is also to be admired, particularly on the faster tracks which require a ton of stamina and intricacy to nail.

Everything eventually wraps up with the mindblowing closer “Recharging the Void,” a 13-minute epic that pulls together everything the album tried (and succeeded) to accomplish. The story started by “Charging the Void” comes full circle with many musical and lyrical nods to that very track. One of which is the melodic portion with the choir returning, but it’s been expanded to a full ballad portion with DiSanto showing off a beautifully calm vocal performance; in it, he sings: “All we ask is our story told.” Well the band’s story has been told. It was told in a 73-minute-long masterpiece, a sci-fi tale that’s gorgeous and compelling while being complex and brutal. I usually don’t hand out a perfect score to such new releases, but it’s the only score I can imagine lending to Terminal Redux. There’s not a single dud here, the story is exceptionally well-delivered and well-paced, and every musician is on-point. This, my friends, is a modern metal classic.

(Originally written for Sputnikmusic.com)

First of all, I'm not going to go off starting a paragraph on Vektor's previous releases as all of you being thrash fans (I'm automatically assuming the vast majority of you reading this review are at least casual fans of the genre) must've heard them in any case. If not, then well too bad then. Though Outer Isolation was killer in its own right, my personal favourite would still have to be Black Future even after all these years. Make of that what you will. One of the (very) few bands actually pushing the envelope of thrash and showing most of the other bands how it's actually done. Now regarding Terminal Redux, I would have to say that not only is it their most ambitious work up to date, but also their most technical as well. There are ample nods and instances of homage to Voivod and later-era Death throught the album (like in the case of their previous records as well, but here the influences are much more obvious and less subtle) and it's clear that these two bands were the main spheres of influence while writing this record. However most ambitious and technical doesn't automatically make it their best work does it? Let's take a look.

Even a casual listen of this album will be enough to tell you that if there's just one thing this album has in fucking truckloads, it's the RIFFS. Of course, that's a no brainer since this is thrash you're talking about, but goddamn there's literally an overload of them and I can guarantee that even if you could equate the riffs to the number of air-dropped meals being provided to a highly populated third world country faced with immense starvation, in all probability every single person would be fed by the end of the album. Yeah I'm not kidding on that front. When Vektor kill it, they hit the freaking bulls eye right on target with searing riffs, just the right amount of interesting progressive interludes and structures plus enough sizzling technicality to make most other bands out there doubt their own abilities as musicians. The first two sledgehammers "Charging The Void" and "Cygnus Terminal" should tell you enough of what I'm talking about with the band firing on all cylinders and aceing it on every front, plus even the short (by this album's standards anyway) thrashers "Ultimate Artificer" and "Pillars Of Sand" manage to inject just the right amount of progressive influences welded with super-awesome thrash riffage triggering the headbanging reflex all the way.

Now the main problem is that the band got overambitious with almost 6 songs (that's half the album, just btw) crossing the 7 minute mark which is bound to eventually lose the interest of even the most seasoned listener, especially considering that this is thrash we're talking about. Definitely not the kind of genre that you want to mix up with super-heavy doses of the overtly epic and overblown variety of prog. Even bands like Heathen and Voivod at their proggiest knew where exactly to draw that line between the music being actually fun to listen to and just becoming overtly pretentious after a point. In any case that's a very thin line we're talking about. Like I stated in the heading of the review, this album is just too much of a good thing, however weird that may sound. Too much of a thrash assault to be called enjoyably after the 50th minute. Maybe a double album would've been a better idea. Sure, "Collapse" is an awesome song by itself and a nice change of pace from the rest of the album, but during the first and second listen of the album, I found my attention span being severely tested at that point with my mind automatically drifting off elsewhere. Towards the end, listening to this album is literally like gorging on your favourite dessert with three gigantic helpings for breakfast, lunch and freaking dinner, for fucks sake. Sure it's delicious and all, but don't remotely kid yourself, you're going to be sick as a pig by the end of it, no matter how good the dish may be. Quite the harsh description, but I had to get my point across.

“Ultimate Artificer” really kicks it up on the technicality with some pummelling riffs and “Pteropticon” with its twisted leads is quite the throwback to the early days of technical thrash back in the late 80s, really bringing to mind the best of acts like Forbidden and Kreator. Even “Pillars Of Sand” is one heck of a song with a wider emphasis on the riffs. These tracks really fucking work seven ways to Sunday simply because the band isn’t forcing the technicality or the songwriting and simply letting the music flow naturally not to mention keeping it short and simple on most fronts. Which I sadly cannot say for some of the longer songs here. “Psychotropia” is definitely one of the songs that fall into this tendency of the band simply bloating the song for the heck of it - amazing as it is, there’s no way in hell that you can deny that the song ultimately has simply too much going on for it in terms of ideas, riffs, technicality, leads or progressions - the whole damn lot, jacked up on a good 8 lines of cocaine to boot. Yeah that probably does sound appealing to most of you out there, but some serious editing would have definitely done the song wonders.

It’s no secret that most ballads almost never work on thrash albums except in a few rare cases, but I am quite astonished to say that “Collapse” is one of the best songs on the album with some seriously awesome guitar leads, acoustic picking and riffs with actual emotion and feel. Yeah, hard as that may be to believe, it’s actually true. But seriously those screechy vocals being layered on top of the clean vocals are irritating as fuck and really grate on my nerves after the 2nd listen. Why the fuck couldn’t he just shut up and let the cleans take over the song? Talking about messing up a good thing.

The last song “Recharging The Void” is one of the few long winding songs here that actually works on every level with the band throwing literally everything but the kitchen sink at you even featuring soulful clean vocals, slower and more haunting guitar parts and textures along with a goddamn arsenal of riffs following quite the twisted approach to songwriting and keep your interest fresh throughout its length of 13 minutes. Quite the epic closing track, I must say.

At the end of the day, it’s such a damn toughie for me to rate Terminal Redux for the simple fact that all the flaws of this album notwithstanding, these guys are some of the best metal musicians out there and every single song here is rock solid proof of that fact. But the underlying fact of the matter is just because you CAN make overlong prog thrash, stuffing almost every bit of the music to the gills with remarkable virtuosity and technicality oozing from every damn nook and cranny doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD. Sometimes you just need to STOP, slow the fuck down and let the music breath every once in a while. The pretty much non-stop relentless pace of this album doesn’t really help matters either, especially not when you're dealing with a thrash album that's over an hour long.

Don't get me wrong, this is still a damn fantastic release and don't let my slight dissing of certain elements of the album and anyone else tell you otherwise. When all is said and done, you'll be really hard-pressed to find other bands playing at such a level of composition and virtuosity as these guys, even in the small genre pool of progressive thrash. Without a doubt these guys have monstrous chops and gave it their 150% on this album and I'll be damned if it doesn't show on every song, but man - give us a fucking break from time to time. More breather tracks (like the minute long "Mountains Above The Sun") and less over-extended 8 minute plus thrash-fests ("LCD" and "Psychotropia" come to mind) would have definitely helped this album actually live up to its status of a prog thrash classic. Not to say that the aforementioned songs are bad in any way plus the guitaring (on all the songs for that matter) is at a level of mastery rarely heard in metal nowadays, but they illustrate the main problem with this album - Too many ideas and licks shoehorned into a single song instead of being tactfully spread out across the album and given time to actually develop and progress. It does kill me to say that, but it's true. Also, thrash in its very essence is a one-dimensional and to-the-point genre of metal and prog thrash indeed defies that definition, but even the greatest of prog thrash bands (Watchtower, Coroner and even Nevermore and Communic later on in the late 90s-early 2000s) remembered the key element of writing long songs was the songwriting. Which is exactly the element that Vektor fall a tad short of on this album. Finally it's over-ambition that kills the potential this release had of actually living up to what most metal-heads on this site are hailing it as - an absolute classic. I do feel quite harsh at this point criticizing a band that's clearly one of the best in its genre (in any case, their previous albums do prove that fact) and it's probably just my individual tastes that don't sit too well with the overall gargantuan length of this release, but I can't help thinking how much better this album would have been if only the band had actually packed all their ideas and technicality into shorter and more concise song structures. That way, at least my patience wouldn't have been tested to this extent. Still I'd recommend that even the most casual fan of thrash, tech death or progressive metal should definitely give this a listen and form their own opinion.

Vektor's third output ''Terminal Redux'' is quite a mixed bag. Overall, it's the band's worst release so far and yet it includes three of the very best songs they have ever written that really save the album at the end.

The first six songs minus the short instrumental interlude all sound quite alike. The band offers blackened thrash metal with speedy riffs, distorted and dystopian guitar sounds, thunderous rhythm sections and hoarse vocals. This furious mixture works well for a song or two but not for six in a row. The tracks get repetitive, predictable and exhausting. Another issue is the length of several tunes. In certain cases, the band had used all its ideas in the first four or five minutes but stretches the tracks to the double. These tracks are losing momentum and end up being below average songs that waste a lot of potential. The genre and sound are coherent yet the usual creativity and emotionalism are missing.

Just when I thought that the band was running out of ideas, they come around with an absolutely brilliant closing trio that saves this album. ''Pillars of Sand'' seems to start like a slow and mysterious tune but soon turns into a destructive space metal track that gets progressively faster and heavier. This track has a clearer structure and more coherent development than the songs before and that's why it sounds so efficient. This song feels like the most brutal tune on the album and should please any progressive extreme metal fan.

''Collapse'' on the other side is by far the calmest tune on the album. The guitar melodies are appeasing, harmonious and hypnotizing while the floating vocals sound very different from the other tracks and develop a mysterious atmosphere. This song feels like a psychedelic trip through space and never ends up feeling plodding despite a running time far beyond nine minutes. Vektor were always great when they decided to slow down to contrast the madness of their more generic tunes and this is especially true for this emotional highlight that is worth to be discovered over and over again.

Still, the closing epic ''Recharging the Void'' beats everything on this album in more than thirteen minutes of atmosphere, creativity and intensity. This is what a dystopian space opera should sound like. This track has more of a mid-tempo pace which makes it sound more balanced and less rushed. The heavy riffs and raw vocals feel even more intense at a smoother pace than at the speed of light. The middle section features female operatic voices and male clean vocals accompanied by a minimal use of rhythm instruments and enchanting guitar melodies. Here the band reaches the brilliance of bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Queen. This intense middle part leads into a stunning finish where beautiful melodies and epic soundscapes meet poignant extreme metal parts with ferocious riffs and unchained vocals. This fusion of two extremes is absolutely perfect. ''Recharging the Void'' is Vektor's opus magnum so far and establishes the band as the greatest song writers in the progressive extreme metal genre.

In the end, Vektor save an otherwise extremely underwhelming record in extremis with three unequaled masterpieces that might as well be the best songs this band has written so far. This epic trio is worth purchasing this record alone. If you are looking for a constantly intriguing and technically appealing record with some science-fiction flair, do yourself a favor and listen to Unbeing's outstanding Ceres that might as well be the album of the year.

I've come across a lot of albums in my time of listening to metal in which I thought, "You know what, that was epic, but maybe a bit too epic." I had the same thought while taking a listen to Vektor's Terminal Redux. The album's strengths lie in its song structure and arrangement, riffs and melodies, and stunning lyrical content that are both relevant and discouragingly perplexing. With this album added to their arsenal of music, they will evolve into what truly unleashed their full potential.

For a thrashy band, there are some seriously long-ass songs on this album. We're talking thirteen minute kind of stuff. When I listen to metal tracks of that kind of length, normally they lead me boredom and thoughts of when my next paycheck is coming in or what I'll have for dinner tonight. But Vektor managed to fill every minute of this record, and especially the extremely long track "Recharging the Void" with a refreshing amount of varied playing styles that made we want to listen to the whole track. That particular song was full of some of what I consider to be Vektor's best songwriting by far. Throughout this album, the listener will hear all sorts of approaches in the different roots of composing that David DiSanto and Co. have taken. Concepts like the use of clean vocals, and even female vocals shows that they are transforming into a different beast altogether and that they are not just another prog/thrash group. Hell, the part that these vocals were showcased in sounded like some Pink Floyd b-side. I really think that every time a new record is produced by these men, it just shows that they are getting better and better with age.

The only thing that can match up and be on par with the songwriting of Terminal Redux is its lyrics. I cannot begin to describe how odd, yet beautiful they can be. Some songs depict the horrors of space and its unforgiving nature, but others are beacons of solace in all of the chaos and the words that go with them fit like a glove. Lines like "Particles known only in theory, within my grasp, Entering the cloud of the exploded mass," show to the whole world that not only are the subjects of each song breaking the mold and pushing into new territory, but also that their musical creators are doing the same with their songwriting and musical abilities. They can be as complex as the riffs and melodies employed on Terminal Redux, and are cliché-free.

All of this ties back into why I think that Vektor are becoming the most technically competent and innovating thrash metal outfit of this era. They understand the need to break the mold, they understand the need for a new set of musical concepts, and most of all, they know what it means to tell an interesting story through both melody and words. I've always been a fan of this whole tech-thrash, spacecore, make-your-head-hurt-with-complexity metal, and Vektor is usually my go-to band for that sort of thing. Terminal Redux was fun while it lasted, but ultimately will leave me with many memories, memories that they are becoming a representation of the amazing thrash meets progressive metal titan that is Terminal Redux. But above all of that, the album shows the band evolving out of just the realms of thrash metal with some progressive flair, and into a musically complicated, extreme metal beast full of a multitude of genres. Now I need an ibuprofen.

Black Future is one of the best modern thrash releases ever made. Outer Isolation was pretty good as well, but wasn't as innovative, solid and creative as the debut, and unfortunately, Terminal Redux goes in the vein of the second album. It's not bad by any means- it's far better than almost every NWOTM release of the year- but it feels too draggy for a major part of the album. It's like taking the effect that the hyperspeed beam of the first Star Trek season had when it's first premiered and because of a shortage in money the laser was rebuilt again from its original components so it could serve two more USS Enterprises. And we trekkies all know that the Enterprise B was a huge failure right? Because in the first part of Star Trek: Generations it exploded in space and sent Captain Kirk straight into it. Right? RIGHT?

Enough with the trekkie rant and let's get on to the damn music. Imagine Voivod, Death's The Sound Of Perseverance and F tuning mixed together. So that's about how the album sounds like- proggy thrash with high screeches featuring the occasional technical noodling and dissonant chords, which all make a spacey atmosphere. As written before, the album is way to samey at times. And by "at times" I meant for most of its duration, because it only took me a while to get to the Raining Blood-ish breakdown in LCD to understand that three songs have passed so far- which can get pretty tiring at times. At least there's a short acoustic track after these three songs, and after that the frenzy fest begins again.

Except for the top notch Voivody riffs, the drums are pretty damn excellent too- and are also one of the more recognizable characteristics of the album. As the albums begins, they come speeding at you like a fleet of enemy Klingon starships when they discovered that you have invaded their territory. And they keep doing that for nearly the entire duration of the album, which takes down from their effect as a leading force in Terminal Redux. The vocals suffer from the same problem as well, for being an awesome variation of Skeletonwitch's BM screech but are way too overused in the duration of the album, and don't really fit the atmosphere as well. These things reduce the album's score, and make it seem more like a sophisticated version of Municipal Waste rather than the original, creative force that the band was in its early stages. It's really hard differing Charging the Void from Cygnus Terminal, or Psychotropia from Ultimate Artificer, but fear no more, space explorer! There are a few memorable parts in the album, such as Pillars Of Sand which is really damn memorable and the To Live Is To Die-y half ballad Collapse which features really soothing clean vocals and a really trippy guitar part. The production job emphasizes all of these things, with perfectly equalizing the instruments and gives all of the album's parts an equal shine.

Lyric wise, this album is damn good. It's like a revised Thorns, but this time with a plot line and a lot of cool ass space references. This provides one of the most notable things in Terminal Redux, and because of it's pure brilliance and awesomeness, I won't quote them as usually done in my reviews for the sole reasons that to choose only one noteworthy verse from this album is hard to do, which brings Sabbat's Dreamwaver to mind (yes, it's THAT hard).

Overall, this album is good, but if the first half hour of the album was reduced by its time Terminal Redux would've been considered as a masterpiece in my terms. Recommended.

RIP Leonard Nimoy 1931-2015


FUCK STAR WARS

I had mostly strayed wide of Vektor's latest release due to the fact that both prog and thrash are genres that I'm unfamiliar with. But as is often the case curiosity got the better of me eventually, and I ended up giving this a spin. It's been praised so highly and so widely that it surely ought to be a great example of what these genres can offer. And it's true, at times it's an absolutely excellent listen, but it's also spaced out with so much stuff that isn't.

Concept albums always sound like interesting ideas, although in reality they rarely have the impact that they intend. As someone who doesn't have a particular fascination for lyrics, I can honestly tell you that Terminal Redux doesn't really feel like the journey that it should be. The songs don't feel tied to one another, and they don't always flow especially well from one to the next (for example the end of 'LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)' does not in any way lead into the instrumental 'Mountains Above the Sun' that follows it). The whole point of a concept album is that the separate tracks ought to fit together like one huge epic, and Vektor don't sell it to me (not consistently at least).

And then there's the run-time. Seventy-three minutes is whopping for any release, but with something more atmospheric and subtle a band can just about get away with it. Vektor are just about the polar opposite of that. Terminal Redux is full-on for well over an hour, and that makes it pretty hard to sit and listen to this beast. Each song is also a bit of a chore to sit through, and frankly it feels as though half of the album could just have been ditched. On tracks like 'Pteropticon' it just feels like the band are going through the same motions over and over again for twice as long as they really need to. Maybe it's important for the story that I'm supposed to be following, but to me it just drags.

One of the reasons I find Terminal Redux difficult to follow is David DiSanto's vocals.His performance quality is mediocre at best, although that may be because I'm not a fan of the black metal rasps that he uses for most of this. They're weak and never really establish themselves, and at times I also find it very challenging to understand what he's banging on about. Like I said earlier I'm not overly bothered by what a band chooses to write about, but if David's vocals were done differently then perhaps I might at least understand a little of the story and maybe I would appreciate this record more. I'm also not convinced that his style fits entirely with the technical and thrashy theme that the band are going for. Lower growls would have worked much better in my opinion, and honestly I would have been okay with some more cleans too. The ones displayed on 'Collapse' are pretty good at any rate.

The rest of the band are undoubtedly better than the vocalist, but frustratingly there are a lot of lows to go with the highs. Vektor are extremely technical, but this does not guarantee excitement. Large phases of 'Pteropticon' and 'Recharging the Void' are actually pretty boring as far as I'm concerned despite all the noodling. Vektor excel when things are a little calmer, as is demonstrated brilliantly in the middle section of 'Pillars of Sand'. The lead up to this point and the parts that follow just don't have the same impact as that simple melodic scale does. Sometimes less is more, although this is definitely not the case for the bass. While not always completely audible over the guitars you can always hear it thumping away in the background, giving the band a heavy edge and helping to ram home the thundering power of the riffs. And of course the drumming is some of the most competent I've heard; Blake Anderson knows not to go overboard with the technicality (I guess the guitarists could learn a thing or two from him) and as a result everything is very tasteful and fits perfectly with the rest of the band. Excellent work.

The one clear standout track is 'Collapse'. Simply, this is what Vektor should have done for the entire album. In general the more laid-back sections without the intense thrashy riffing are done to an incredibly high standard, but they completely nailed it on this song. The cleans add something not seen elsewhere; emotion. But the remarkable thing is that they continue this even once they've progressed beyond this point and David's back to snarling again. The leads are so beautifully crafted and don't dissolve into technicality for the sake of it, and I have to ask why the hell the rest of the album isn't the same. Nothing comes close to what they achieve on 'Collapse', and that's quite gutting. When it goes right it's clear that Vektor are a fantastic band, but sadly they don't do it often enough.

Terminal Redux, to be blunt, is one hell of an album. This record is a very complex and intricate work consisting of an insane amount of music that is executed with varying amounts of success. Terminal Redux is one of the most weighted listens you'll ever experience and the magnitude of it all can make it a very intimidating and overwhelming listen. Regardless of whether or not you enjoy this album, props are definitely deserved just for how much work must have gone into the making of the album. The creativity is off the charts and the album was built with hands that draw from a vast well of ideas while being guided by eyes with a mean sense of composition. That said, it doesn't stand nearly as a masterpiece and suffers from a few design flaws that hurt its structural integrity.

Terminal Redux can be summed up as a wild bout of progressive thrash metal that draws heavily from more extreme influences. The riffing and vocals are quite harsh while every song features a huge array of different approaches and song sections. The band isn't afraid to throw a total onslaught of complex riffing and aggressive verses at you and occasionally a completely vicious, more old-school thrash riff rears its head (see "Pteropticon"). Some of the solos, while not inherently technically impressive, really help to further the cause of the album and some of them even serve as interesting transitions or interludes. The album is never boring no matter what it's doing, and I can't help but always be sucked into the ever-changing musical maelstrom that it whips up. As a whole, the album successfully portrays a fine set of progressive thrash that struts some serious musical and intellectual stuff.

However, the very thing that sets this album apart from its other modern thrash colleagues would be the thing that hurts it as a whole. The album is just so damn massive that it can get overextended at times. Sometimes you feel like the band could have kept things just a bit more concise. Some of the song sections carry on for a bit too long and the pained wailing of the vocalist for extended amounts of time can get a bit tiresome. This thing is extremely off-putting at times and it takes a while to digest. I do feel that many of the song sections could have been left out leaving a much stronger and concise piece of music. I am also not fond of the vocalist's approach at all, but he sort of fits the dark and chaotic nature of the music and he at least does a damn good job of selling his performance. This record still stands as a very well done album, with some damn fine musicianship and songwriting but it could have been executed in a bit more of a direct manner.

Overall, Terminal Redux is a masterful album that stands quite tall over lots of other modern thrash with its rather impressive musicianship, songwriting, lyricism, and overall execution. I would like it a lot more if it would have been a little more concise, but really it is still quite enjoyable. It's really an experience to delve into and it deserves massive props for this. The whole thing stands best as a whole and the tracks sort of lose their charm separated form their brethren, but my favorite individual song is, by far, "Pteropticon" with it's totally wicked riffing and a wide array of brilliantly thrashing song sections. The most profound thing about what Vektor have done here is that they have taken a rather straightforward medium like thrash metal and molded into a true work of art. I don't like my thrash molested, but I must say that these guys have done an excellent job of making a very artistic, compelling, and at the very least interesting concept album that serves as much more than just another metal record. With just a bit of fine tuning, this could've been an absolute masterpiece.

I used to hate this record, but over time it's grown on me considerably. It's quite impressive and I encourage fans of really outgoing, complex metal to check this out. It really is a worthwhile experience, and while I won't ever consider this a go-to album for any occasion - it kicks my ass every time whether I like to admit it or not. Vektor had a very ambitious idea and they executed it with skill, creativity, and vision but not quite with excellence. It's by no means for everybody, but it sure is a grower. Do give this a shot, it's definitely worth your time.

While this album isn't at all perfect, at its core this is definitely a solid product with great potential. The vision of the band is clear and they know what they're doing for the most part, but they tend to lose it sometimes. The sound here is a progressive form of thrash with technical riffing being interspersed with light-speed soloing, intriguing bass lines and atmospheric sections. The songs are long and epic in scope, and proceed to blow the listener's mind away with technical musicianship and sweep them away into the coldest depths of space.

Or at least, that's the idea. For one thing, ruining the whole vibe of the album and knocking it down more than anything else at play here is the vocal performance, which is awful. David DiSanto's performance on this album amounts to a black metal-ish raspy shriek - this isn't a problem per se, the real problem is that his take on this vocal style is thin, weak and pulpy. His harsh voice isn't anywhere near powerful, raspy or commanding enough for music this blisteringly aggressive, the vocal lines he has to sustain sound even more strained than normal, and he lacks a character or distinctiveness that would make him this band's own Dave Mustaine or Paul Baloff - a technically awful but totally awesome and irreplaceable front man. I honestly think this album would work with a throatier and thicker take on the rasp, or even high-flying and powerful clean vocals. Either way his performance is detrimental to the album and entirely disposable. To his credit though, the clean vocals found on the ballad 'Collapse' are very good and quite soulful - in fact this band has always been quite good when it comes to the emotional side of things.

Upon delving past the vocals, all seems well on paper. Now, I won't deny for a second that the rest of the band members here are brilliant at their respective instruments. The drummer for instance shows incredible nous throughout, mixing up the usual fast thrash beat with blasting and lots of tasteful fills and other assorted unusual patterns, as well as backing off when the song isn't going full speed ahead. The multitudes of riffs on this album are fantastic. Not only do they sound fine-tuned to perfection and played with the utmost precision, but they're very technical and aggressive - but more to the point they sound inspired. Unlike the endless sea of Vektor's modern thrash contemporaries I can listen to this album and safely call it their own sound, while still referencing the past - obviously Voivod, Watchtower and other such prog/tech thrash acts come to mind, and a bit of post-black can be heard too at times. The bass meanwhile is very heavy and is constantly throwing inventive and technical bass lines at the listener, even playing a solo during 'Psychotropia'. The leads on this album in general are very technical and lengthy, and manage to keep things interesting without devolving into noodling or noise.

While the instruments themselves are technically accomplished I still think that the songwriting leaves something to be desired. For one, the dynamics and the way they're structured feels off. There are times on the first two and last two tracks especially where they throw everything they have at you. The leads blaze, the riffs finely dance about, the bass thumps away and David doesn't shut up. The problem though is that when music throws everything at you and goes full speed ahead for long enough, not only can consonance be difficult to discern but also the music becomes more still as it fades into white noise over time. Also the guitarists tend to spend too much time on the leads and not enough time going for conventional thrash riffing.

I also get a certain sense of transcendence, so to speak, with this album. It's like Vektor are becoming more than a thrash band, and this becomes apparent not only through the overly long leads but also through how the various sections of the songs are prioritised. At various points on this album it feels like the band are soloing away as quickly as possible during the fast parts so they can rush straight into an ambient, progressive part. This is a relatively minor and subjective complaint but it feels like they don't want to thrash that much, a sentiment that crops up throughout the album. There are fewer riffs here than on previous efforts and the progressive parts are more pronounced as well, with the thrashing sections taking a back seat somewhat. It's cool that they're not restricting themselves and all that but this feels like a transition piece between prog and thrash rather than a fusion of the two, because these songs don't really feel like cohesive wholes. The transition from thrash to ambient is very jarring and sudden. The riffs and leads are developed, as are the soundscape sections but I don't feel like they did a good enough job stitching the two together and melding them properly. And I can't help but feel that these songs go on for a bit too long and aren't focused enough. The particularly noodling parts of the album fail at keeping the listener interested, and sometimes the band sort of lose focus and repeat themselves for long stretches. It feels like every individual section of each song can be shortened by a mere 30 seconds and nothing would really be lost.

With all of this said, this is still a technically proficient release at heart. All the instrumentation is superb, managing to be technical and memorable all at once when they calm down a bit. The vocals, though awful, are along the right lines. The songwriting chops are almost there as well - this album really is a case of 'what could have been'. During the mid-section of this album, where the band calm down and re-learn the concept of dynamics and don't stretch the songwriting, the instruments can really shine through and they make for some of the better songs on the album; the vocals can be looked past as they're not mixed too loudly. The ambient soundscapes perfectly depict the cold vastness of outer space, and the production is suitably clear, cold and crisp for the lyrical subject and the 'spacey' and epic atmosphere they were going for - an atmosphere which they sometimes succeed at. When the band drop off completely during 'Collapse', they manage to make one of the best songs on the album; it is the most memorable and the most poignant and shows off the often neglected softer side to this band's music - but even then it's too long for its own good, and the dreaded shrieks return during the song. This song above any other sums up this album's nature: it's a collection of good ideas, ruined.

After five years, rethrash’s only innovative outfit are back with another space thrash metal epic. On Terminal Redux, Vektor prove that they’re the masters of technical thrash. This is the album for people who love a million riffs and solos per song played at a million miles per hour.

In some ways Terminal Redux sees Vektor delving more into Death territory. Not only are the vocals reminiscent of a less irritating Chuck Schuldiner, but a lot of the proggier passages evoke Death’s later career in terms of overall vibe.

There’s still plenty of thrash metal here and it’s played at frantic pace that not many bands would maintain on their first album, let alone their third. The black metal influences are still here too and are seamlessly integrated with the technical thrash. There are progressive influences here but they’re not overbearing.

Alas on Terminal Redux, Vektor also prove that memorable song writing or judicious editing are not their strengths. The diversity of songs in terms of number of riffs and lack of recurring themes means that the songs invariably blur into one hyper intense riff and solo fest. Very often the only thing to differentiate songs is a clean little intro before the blistering riff attack commences. Couple this with a 73 minute running time and overall intensity and it becomes a very exhausting and in the end boring experience. It’s also lacking in memorability. Indeed after a couple of listenings the only bits that I could remember was one chorus hook in “Pillars of Sand.”

The only exception to the general thrash attack is the “ballad”, “Collapse.” The only noteworthy thing about this song is it is not a blistering thrash attack. Other than the first solo it’s not exactly an interesting song. DiSanto’s clean vocals are competent but not exceptional or emotionally engaging. And the song then gets ruined by overlaying harsh vocals on a mainly clean part.

For those craving intense technical thrash, this album will hit most nails on the head. It is Vektor’s most accomplished work to date. However its length and lack of memorable songs limit the enjoyment of this album and its replay value.

Thrash metal seems to be making a comeback, especially due to the fact that there are classic acts releasing their best work in years. However, there have been a new act that has just released an album that is better than all of them. That band is Vektor and that album is Terminal Redux. While most newer thrash acts tend to replicate the 1980s and be completely ignored, Vektor do their own thing. They take the genre and add touches of black metal, along with the complexity and experimental nature of prog. They have always had a following, but this release has been getting more attention than anything else that they have ever done. This is largely due to the fact that they have transcended their sound beyond belief. Their music is more chaotic than ever before and the musicianship is off the chart. The extended length of the tracks give the music more time to fulfill what it sets out to. From the first two minutes of "Charging the Void", you can point out that this is highly complex and technically accomplished music. The chaotic nature is the audio equivalent of being hurled through space with great force. Not to say that the guitar riffs are not appealing, as the rhythm guitar work is one of the biggest strengths on this album, as well as thrash metal in general. It is played fast, yet with great focus, something expected of the band.

The concept of the album is very well-written. I will not spoil it, but our protagonist's intentions are not in good nature. The music of the album fits the concept perfectly. Each track is a build on the last told part of the story, with the ability to cause the listener to experience feelings of reality. Very few concept albums have the ability to actually make me feel as though I am actually in the setting that it speaks of, especially in the case that the band behind it have never created one in the past. It is quite an enhancement of enjoyability to read the lyrics along with the music, as it gives off a much stronger sense of realism. Although it may be difficult to make sense of the concept at first glance, a detailed look can be highly rewarding. The music is the same way. Due to the lack of traditional thrash style, the listener may be put off. But when you learn to accept it for what it is and then listen again, the experience is exquisitely enjoyable. The riffs collide with the pummeling drums to make a highly aggressive beast of a record. This is with the exception of "L.C.D", which has a very catchy main riff, as well as a superior position to the majority of the album. It is my second favorite track of the album (I will get to my main highlight later).

The extreme vocals are one of a kind. David DiSanto has a vocal tone reminiscent of the vocals done by Chuck Schuldiner on Symbolic (one of my favorite albums of all time), but with a raspier shriek. It even sounds alien-like at points. Full to the brim of energy and charisma. His high-pitched screams are a bit annoying, but they are quite rare. He also does clean vocals from time to time toward the end of the record. The first time, he is a bit flat, but he sounds absolutely beautiful on the last track. Speaking of the last track, "Recharging the Void", is the best track of the album, as well as my favorite of the year thus far. It takes everything that you have heard throughout the album and takes it to the very top. The first half of the track is relentless melodic brutality that is more than a blast to listen to. The soul-singers are back again, as they had been on the first track, the melodic riffing of "L.C.D" has returned and the dynamic tempo-changes seen more on the first half than the latter have also made a comeback. Toward the end of the track, the album is more melodic than ever, as well as reminiscent of power metal. The part of the story being told is very suitable for this, as well as the even harsher and more powerful nature of the vocals. Much more "epic" than some cheesy as hell power metal acts try to be.

This album could inspire an evolved new wave of thrash metal, a movement that could actually gain relevance, rather than the re-thrashed garbage of newer acts today. I once placed Vektor on my list of shitty Voivod ripoffs, but this album blew my expectations straight out of the ground and straight to outer space. Each songs goes into the next one perfectly and you cannot wait to hear what lies ahead. This was an incredibly fun and exciting listen, as well as a very confident contender for the best metal album of 2016. This is an album from a band that has gone from unoriginal re-thrash to something completely innovative and charismatic. This album is getting loads of praise and it is all well-deserved. A complete punch to the face of those who say that thrash is done, as well as those who say that metal lacks innovation in today's times. If this band continues to make masterful music such as this, they could become one of the greatest names in metal, as well as bring forth to the metal scene a new wave of thrash metal with bands that are actually good. If that is truly the case, then count me in. I await it all with great anxiousness.

Imagine if you will, a massive weapon with the capability of destroying immeasurable areas of space with the simple press of a button, a cosmic nuke if you will. Being the hopeless anime freak that still lives in the late 1990s when the art form was at its peak, I've elected to dub this death device a "dimensional cannon", a name stolen from the first Tenchi Muyo! feature film, described by one of its more practically minded characters as "for taking out a small galaxy". It is a fitting theft for an album that manages to live up to such a massive amount of hype, as since the retro-thrash scene had its peak circa 2009, I've been thoroughly inundated with assurances that all pale in comparison to the relatively limited studio participation of Vektor, of which their third LP Terminal Redux is considered their coup de gras. Sometimes, despite protests to the contrary, hype comes with good reason, and such is the case with this rather expansive cluster of otherworldly excursions into the outer limits.

The method behind this band's madness could be likened to an ingenious mixture of arcane technical thrash wizardry and a ear-shattering display of modern extremeness that borders on being blackened. It maintains a surprisingly heavy degree of organic flair, coming off less like some mechanistic series of clanks and grinding gears typical of many post-1992 minded thrashing affairs, and more like a whirlwind of spacey yet crunchy asteroids punching holes through a nebula. The riff work emulates the heavily ornamented and flashy demeanor of Coroner and Watchtower and perfectly merges it with the jazzy character of Voivod's transitional efforts in the later 80s, and is further augmented by a rhythm section that is about as busy. All of this is accomplished while regularly referring back to a number of familiar genre themes to keep things from veering out of the thrash realm, though one might find it hard to bang one's head at a consistent rate given the frequent shifts in feel contained within each of these five to thirteen minute epics.

In its overall demeanor, this album tends to bear a bit more similarity to debut effort Black Future in that the songs are consistently elongated and elaborated all but to the point of morphing into a nexus between oblivion and eternity. This sense of exaggeration is mirrored in vocal performance of David DiSanto, whom could have always been likened to a black metal vocalist that's been trapped in a thrash metal dimension, but here ups the ante and comes closer to territory normally reserved to Ihsahn or Dani Filth. Along with a blistering display of fret board acrobatics courtesy the guitars and a wild set of bass leads that would make Joey Demaio blush, things reach a sort of otherworldly peak with "Psychotropia", which is the most intense journey into light speed technical space travel ever conceived by this band, and possibly by anyone in the style. But naturally one would be remiss to discount the twin towers of epic solar destruction that stand at this album's outer fringes, namely "Charging The Void" and "Recharging The Void", both of which are exercises in genre-expansion that blur the lines between black and thrash metal in ways that the likes of Skeletonwitch and Toxic Holocaust could only dream of.

As with any album seeking to expand metal's already distant event horizon, the downside that tends to come along for the ride is the overambitious pitfall, and there are times when things get a tad bit bizarre (like the jazz/soul interlude on "Recharging The Void" which has a jolting effect similar to having Pink Floyd do a guest slot on a Sodom album). Nevertheless, the general consistency in approach from one song to the next tends to nullify the occasion transitions into Devin Townsend territory from being overly random, not to mention that its a foregone conclusion that anyone approaching this band isn't going to be expecting another Metallica clone. It might be a bit controversial to call this the greatest of Vektor's efforts, both given what they've already accomplished and also that they show little signs of hanging things up despite having a fairly long gap between their sophomore effort and this one, but it is a defensible assertion. The analogy of a device capable of destroying a galaxy may indeed be itself an incomplete one, given that Terminal Redux has all but created a completely new and better one over what undreamed of destruction it may have reaped. Hyperbole aside, greatness has been achieved here, and more witnesses to it are thus encouraged.

It’s been 5 Earth years since Vektor released their previous album, “Outer Isolation” upon this world and in the intervening time, the band have shaped what could possibly be the best gift of thrash metal delivered by any band, modern or old-school, since the millennium. That’s how big this album is. Factually, the size of this album is of a 73 minute duration but through the wormhole of riffing, melodies and lyricism, “Terminal Redux” always has a firm grasp of your senses.

In space, no one can hear you scream… Unless you’re David DiSanto, he lets loose his lungs at a jaw dropping magnitude throughout “Terminal Redux”. The lyrical and vocal qualities that made Vektor’s past albums successful lose none of their potency here. The trademark rasps are present in all tracks and his alienating shrieks, like in ’Cygnus Terminal’ launch the songs into increased intensity, however the lyrics remain clarified due the album’s excellent production. His futuristic approach of storytelling in such a visionary way is unparalleled in the metal scene and what’s more impressive is that the music itself matches this galactic imagery.

For the most part of the album, Erik Nelson and DiSanto shred at a speed that could make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs. Tracks like ‘LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)’ and ‘Pillars of Sand’ both have morphing melodies that twist unsubtly from eeriness to franticness however there are slower moments in “Terminal Redux” that allow the songs to take a breather and create space for the progressive elements of Vektor to materialise. The instrumental ‘Mountains Above The Sun’ is an obvious example with its starry melodies however it does serve as an excellent build up to ‘Pteropticon’, which fires off at light speed immediately however it is also another track which exhibits the drifting moments. Each note in ‘Charging The Void’ mysterious interlude is executed with strong decisiveness and pinpoint accuracy.

Further credit has to go towards Vektor for being able to sound genuinely ‘heavy’ while playing instruments with their tuning turned up, not down. The whole band really is at their zenith on “Terminal Redux”. You could pick and chose songs that exemplify the meandering technicality of their riffs and harmonies but, frankly, every track fits that statement. Frank Chin’s bass sounds so audibly heavy it has its own gravitational pull and Blake Anderson’s octopoid drumming talent and blast beats throughout are spectacular.

For the first time, DiSanto displays his clean vocals which exposes themselves to be in the same vein of Pink Floyd’s David Glimour which travels throughout the first half of 'Collapse' The second half is much like the rest of the album in that Vektor play at a furious velocity and completely annihilates anything in its way. The album closer, ‘Recharging The Void’ comprises of an entire album’s worth of ideas. From the explosive start, through a wormhole of interstellar riffing, solos and harmonies we arrive at DiSanto’s piercing screech. From then on it’s pure chaos that ends the album on an alarmingly intense level.

SCI-FI OR DIE!!

Originally written on http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/70712/Vektor-Terminal-Redux/

It's been nearly five long years since Vektor unleashed their last album, 2011's Outer Isolation, upon the masses. In the intervening years, the band has crafted what may well be the finest offering by any thrash band in the 21st century. Terminal Redux is a masterclass in riffing, melody, songwriting, and heaviness (the latter an impressive feat for a band that tunes up, rather than down, from standard). Despite its hefty, 73-minute runtime, the record never drags, and there is nary a dull moment on the album.

Terminal Redux retains all of the elements that made Vektor's first two albums great, and introduces unexpected new twists and turns that keep the band's trademark progressive, highly technical thrash metal sounding fresh and vital. Riff-heavy thrash-feats in the vein of Vektor's debut full-length, Black Future are still in abundance, with songs such as "Pteropticon", "Psychotropia", and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" bursting forth at blinding tempos, the latter song containing a buildup and scream around the five-minute mark that sounds as if it came straight off of a Demolition Hammer record.

In addition to all-out velocity, Vektor continue their trend of writing songs that build tension and atmosphere before resolving it in grandiose, epic fashion. The female backing vocals on the album's opener, "Charging the Void" are the release after nine minutes of intensity and eerie atmosphere, while the tense opening buildup of "Cygnus Terminal" blows up into a hard-charging verse. Of special note on Terminal Redux is the impeccable musicianship featured throughout the album. The guitar tag-team of David DiSanto and Erik Nelson is in top form here, dishing out lightning-speed palm-muted riffs and expertly interwoven harmonies. Nelson's solos are exceptional, showcasing dazzling speed and precision, while still retaining a sense of melody and structure. Blake Anderson's drums are crisp-sounding and prominent in the mix, and he absolutely beats the crap out of his kit, his blast beats and double-bass sections sounding absolutely massive. Additionally, bassist Frank Chin pitches in a nicely-distorted bass solo on "Psychotropia".

Terminal Redux's two best songs come at the very end of the track listing. "Collapse" is a rare moment of mournful serenity from the band, with David DiSanto deploying clean vocals for the first time, calling to mind Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. The second half of the song is more in line with the rest of the record, where the band kicks things into high-gear and destroys everything in it's path. Speaking of destroying everything in one's path, the first five minutes of the album's closer, the over-thirteen minute "Recharging the Void" are absolutely vicious, with explosive riffs that harken back to Black Future's "Accelerating Universe", and a harmony and solo section that ranks among the best on the album. The middle section, which seems to draw heavily 1970s progressive rock, sees the re-introduction of the backing vocals from the beginning of the album, all building to a climax that makes the song possibly the most memorable in Vektor's discography.

Terminal Redux sees Vektor upping their already extremely strong game and coming out with a record that is as epic as it is aggressive, an album that stands as something completely unique in the thrash metal genre. Vektor has somehow taken all of the elements that made up the sound of their first two albums and made them more intense, while adding an engrossing lyrical concept, to boot. The band will certainly have a hard time topping Terminal Redux.

Vektor are possibly the best thrash band on Earth (and in the universe) and while I think this new album of theirs isn’t better than Black Future, it’s still a top notch affair. The 5 years it took them to finish this album were worth it since it’s a tremendous trip into space. Not a lot of bands can pull of a long album like this one, with its seventy-three minutes, it takes a lot of time and energy to full absorb all the kinetic energy that those four Americans deliver. Keeping the listener interested througout he whole record is a grand feat by itself but Vektor also has the ability to bludgeon them with their pristine skills.

While Vektor hasn’t changed its formula (you don’t change a winning one), there’s a lot of surprises to enjoy on Terminal Redux like those clean Lion King-esque chanting on the superb opener “Charging the Void”, the clean vocals of Disanto on the phenomenal semi ballad “Collapse” and also, the fact, that well... they did a “To live is to Die”-esque ballad. This shows that like Metallica, they have the balls and the vision to try new things. The clean break on “Recharging the Void” is probably the nearest a thrash band has come to including cheesy 90s pop influences in their music with those soulful female back vocals reminding me of the ones in Dream Theater’s Scenes from a Memory. This is possibly their best track ever.

Nevertheless, their greatest strength is those extended, rich and completely bonkers tracks and this album is pretty much just that. They’re able to convey emotions with the help of their precise and chirurgical technical musicianship and it’s extremely rare to hear a thrash band do something like that.

While I think there’s absolutely no bad or simply “ok” moment (t’s all pretty damn great), god it is exhausting. I mean, it starts with three seven minutes tracks before giving us a short atmospheric interlude. Still, I’ll never skip any parts since I want to hear the whole sci fi savagery in all its glory. Vektor deserves their fanboyism. They rule the cosmos.

Metantoine's Magickal Realm: Metal Bounty Hunter - Volume 7 - THRASH EDITION

Vektor has been a band that is constantly evolving their sound. With their debut Black Future, they combined high speed thrash metal with black metal influences and progressive song structures. The result was an album that was unique and memorable in many ways. Their follow up, Outer Isolation, saw them refining their progressive style, giving us more of the same great songs while still keeping the same intensity, but not sounding pretentious. So what can you do to top that?

Well, you perfect your style of thrash metal and add an experimental flavor while still keeping true to the sound Terminal Redux is everything Vektor build up too and it certainly does meet the hype.

Almost every song on the album contains multiple fast and furious riffs with blistering speeds. Songs like "Ultimate Artificer", "Pteropticon" and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" show this style to its fullest. The riffs are full of energy and astonishing to say the least. But that’s not all, there is much more to be found here. The band incorporates more melodic elements into the album with riffs building on one another, building more tension as the song goes on and releasing it in a flurry of impressively technical riffs. Tracks like "Pillars Of Sand", "Collapse" and "Charging The Void" show the more melodic style, the latter having a stand out moment around the 7 minute mark, where a blast beat with a melodic riff and a choir all come together to create something special which Vektor has never done before. And they do it so well. The song that stands out the most on the album is "Collapse", a 9 minute ballad like song with clean vocals. David’s clean vocals have a more laid back and gloomy atmosphere, combine this with amazing guitar work and soaring riffs, the song is one of the best on the album.

The last track, "Recharging The Void", combines everything the band has been building up too. A 13 minute track with monstrous riffs, an ambient section which builds on itself with a beautiful vocal harmony and an ending that sounds too epic to be described. The last track really lifted the album’s rating from a 9 to a 10, it’s that amazing

I might be overhyping this album in a more than one way, but I don’t care one bit. Terminal Redux is one of the best thrash metal albums ever made and maybe one of the best metal albums of the last decade. I couldn’t find one dull moment on here, everything comes together to create a beautiful tornado of destruction. Anyone who likes technical thrash should definitely pick this up.

Recommended tracks:
- "Recharging The Void"
- "Collapse"
- "Cygnus Terminal"

Look, hype backlash is a real thing, and I fall victim to it just as much as anybody. Oddly enough, Vektor has been somewhat immune to it for me, as Outer Isolation was met with universal praise when it dropped, and I agreed so hard that it wound up taking my Album of the Year in 2011. Black Future is often praised as the one shining beacon of innovation, musicianship, and songwriting in the murky swamp of rethrash, and I love that album so much that I claim it has some of the greatest thrash riffs ever written and even ranked it at #9 in my massive list of the Best Albums of the Decade, above perennial heavyweights like Primordial, Vader, Slough Feg, and even my beloved pet favorite Gargoyle. The point is that Vektor is the real fucking deal, and they're currently in their prime and expanding their sound, and Outer Isolation managed to one up that monumental debut by polishing up all of the tiny missteps like the jarring transitions when they'd write themselves into a corner, and just generally trimming the fat and spending more time thrashing like maniacs. Terminal Redux here has been five years in the making, and we fans have been salivating like the Sand Worms of Bikanel, this is all we've wanted for years, and now it's finally here.

And with all that hype comes universal praise, and almost zero backlash, which is baffling to me. Usually bands of this caliber draw more than their fair share of contrarian nincompoops who just can't help but rain on every parade they see, but not Vektor. This album has had so much effusive praise thrown at it that it's hard to tell who's telling it to you straight and who is just so lost in the hype that they've forgotten to actually critique what's in front of them. I hate to harp on this, it shouldn't matter, but it absolutely is a real problem with this album and needs to be addressed. Ignore every review except mine. Actually, do that all the time, not just with this album. I'm awesome. Go me.

So the actual, for real critical opinion of Terminal Redux? It's great. It's absolutely fucking awesome and deserves to be heard. But it is flawed, and is unquestionably a step down from Outer Isolation.

The thing is, that's hard for me to say, because I do get what they were trying to do with this album. I get the ideas behind it, I understand why they made the choices they made, and for the most part they work very well, but not all the time. Part of the problem is that they got so caught up in this narrative they've woven that they've sort of lost track of their strengths. This album is Nibbler-poop dense, and there is so much going on at any given time that it's really hard to keep track of it all. DiSanto's Schmier-esque shriek is in top form like always, if a little bit less raspy than in the past, but still great and fitting to the music. The riffs are still completely out of this world, the tempo remains high as a kite, and at no point do the guys ever rest on their laurels and just fart out something easy. This is a challenging album, full of twists and turns and over the top somersaulting, only rarely do they ever slow down and truly let the atmosphere shine without the backdrop of frenetic prog-thrash madness. And those moments are okay, but those white-eyed berserker riffs are exactly what the band excels at, so the nonstop riff onslaught is welcome and very indicative of the traits that made Vektor stand out in the first place.

The problem is, there are a lot more ideas here than there really is time to develop them. Very few sections repeat more than a handful of times, and everything feels hurried. That's a huge problem with what they play. This highly progressive style of off-the-wall madness needs time to develop upon its own ideas, this isn't a Reign in Blood styled bludgeoning, it's a much more high minded concept with a lot of fantastic riffage built around it. They at least do a good job of making the lengthy tracks feel like they're over before they've reached the point of tedium, but it's partially because they all start to run together like one huge song. Maybe that was the point, but with so much going on in the upper third of the fretboard it just ends up disorienting and nonsensical. It's all done to the benefit of the lyrical narrative, but the vocals are so ravenous and insane that it's hard to follow along without a lyric sheet, so it's all kind of moot point anyway. I get that the album is supposed to be an all-at-once experience, but there's just too much happening, it's like trying to read the Lord of the Rings, while also marathoning the movies and listening to the soundtrack all at the same time. It's complete sensory overload and it gets to be overwhelming.

That's not to say the album is broken or anything, because all of the parts that make up this gluttonous monstrosity are still amazing. Nobody writes riffs like Vektor, they very rarely focus on overt heaviness (though the pounding break in "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" is absolutely punishing and easily a highlight of the album) and instead go for the throat at all times with lightning quick thrash riffs that are more razor sharp and piercing than savage and barbaric. Again, this is approached very high-mindedly, it's what a nuclear physicist would write as opposed to the mad scientists of most thrash (good) thrash bands. There's a very mathematical angle to the dizzying whirlwind of notes and atypical rhythms and inhuman drumming. It's smart, and I love that about Vektor. While there are no riffs that instantly hook like "Black Future", "Hunger for Violence", or "Oblivion", the overall songs keep the quality high enough to evoke memories of those slightly better albums anyway. This is all most accurately represented in the middle stretch of the album, from "Liquid Crystal Disease" to "Pillars of Sand". It's no surprise that these more succinct thrash goliaths are my preferred songs, as "Ultimate Artificer" and "Pteropticon" are among the most energized songs they've ever delivered, and I love every second of what happens within this stretch. It's the same technical showcase with way too many things going on as the other four tracks, but during this timeframe, it's all reined in and strikes that balance between blistering vitriol and otherworldly progginess that made those first two albums so memorable.

My main issue with the album is with the first and last two tracks. Terminal Redux is basically the nega-Powerslave in this regard. "Charging the Void" and "Cygnus Terminal" are the main offenders when it comes to this album's tendency to shove way too much at the listener. What happens in these tracks? Everything happens. They're still good tracks, and I like them well enough, but they're obviously bloated with so many ideas that pop up and immediately disappear that they come off as collections of riffs and solos as opposed to well crafted songs with a real purpose in mind. I know, they are, like every song on the album by extension, merely vessels to move along the narrative. But again, this story is impossible to follow anyway so it doesn't really matter, they're just colossal clusterfucks of twenty billion notes. There are good sections, I really like the OOH AH OOH clean vocals in "Charging the Void", and there's a great lead section in the same song, but they don't build and release towards anything. They're just stuff. "Cosmic Cortex" and "Outer Isolation" managed to be songs that exploded towards exciting conclusions, whereas these two songs basically end mid-riff. That riff being the sixtieth riff in the song, by the way. Call me a simpleton, but this shit is flummoxing.

The last two tracks are flawed in a similar but different way. How "Collapse" became known as one of the standout songs to so many people, I'll never understand. It's not bad, it's a welcome change of pace to break up all the non-stop riffing and blasting that occupied the first 45 minutes of the album, but I feel like it's given inflated credit purely for it being a change of pace. It doesn't need to be this long. The clean vocals are surprisingly good, and the chorus stands out for being soothing and one of the few sections of the album to appear more than once, making it sound like a much more cohesive song than the first two confused megaliths, but fucking nobody wanted to hear a nine and a half minute recreation of "Fade to Black" from Vektor. It does what I complained about the first two songs not doing, I'll give it that. It's a unified song, it builds to an obvious climax and keeps the emotion constant, but their strength has always been in that ballistic riffery, and that's why the middle stretch of the album is so good, despite it being a non-stop frenzy of riff salad. "Recharging the Void" is probably the best of the not-so-great songs, but it kinda forgets the lessons that Outer Isolation taught us. It's bloated and meanders around a lot, with the clean sections coming out of nowhere and clobbering you unexpectedly. Vektor is great when they're jarring because of their riffs being so left of center and frantic, not when they're jarring because they decided to emulate Pink Floyd seven minutes into a thrash song. They build upon that part well enough, and it climaxes on a riff that's the closest to black metal they've ever gotten, and the ultimate climax works pretty well. I can't stress that enough, most of these ideas manage to work okay, but not 100% of them, and they're conceptually flawed with how they're inserted into these songs. The templates are whack and incohate, they fly through so quickly that you never get a chance to realize what the fuck is happening, and it comes off more like the band showing off and trying to prove how progressive they are instead of zeroing in on their strengths and building them up to their full potential. I know they can do this. I've heard Outer Isolation loads of times. Tracks like "Recharging the Void", despite being a medium-well coda for the opener (the reappearance of those clean chants are the clear highlight of the song and act as the perfect climax for the album at large), are more in line with what we heard on Black Future. Incredible songs with little direction and a vision far too grand to ever fully realize.

I realize I sorta skimped over the parts of the album I really loved, and that's because fuck what can I really say about them? They take the haphazard mania of the flawed tracks and turn them into focused behemoths that annihilate you in an oh so magnificent way. Their strength lies in that blistering vortex of riffage when it's focused and efficient. I miss the unhinged, breakneck fury of "Tetrastructural Minds" and "Dark Creations, Dead Creators", and I miss the instantly memorable hooks of "Black Future" and "Oblivion". Terminal Redux shows an obvious growth in the band, but they grew too big for their shoes. They dreamed a little bit too big and missed some of the things that made them so incredible. There are only a handful of great hooks, the gargantuan crux of the album is missing the link that makes the great riffs work together. In short, it's just too much, and even with that being said, it's still one of the best albums I've heard all year. Yeah, I don't see this winning AOTY exactly, but I can see it contending. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up in the top 5 despite all of these flaws. Vektor threw all the riffs they could at the listener on this release, and despite some glaring flaws in structuring and progression, a lot of them still stick. Pick it up, but let it be known that it isn't an instant classic like the debut nor a slow burning majesty like the sophomore. It's about on par with the debut, with the added disappointment that a lot of old problems resurfaced and hindered what should have been their magnum opus. It's certainly their most ambitious album if nothing else, no doubt about that.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Believe me, I'm just as stoked that this dropped as the next guy is. I first heard of this band back when Black Future was making waves, and it cemented Vektor's status as a diamond in the vast chasm of shit that is rethrash. Outer Isolation only built on the expectations I had, being even more ambitious and technical than the debut. There were these huge, intricate buildups in songs like "Cosmic Cortex", but they still knew when to throw in some concise, face-melting thrash like "Tetrastructural Minds". They kept the thrash core and just expanded on the unique riff-writing sense they showed on the debut, and the result was a sophomore album that actually exceeded expectations. That is astonishingly rare and made me excited--being a Vektor fan right now means you're following a talented and original band in their prime years of growth and development. You can tell they've got plenty left in the tank and that's something to get yourself hyped as fuck about, especially in the mostly stagnant realm of thrash metal. Hell, they've been instrumental in keeping the retro-thrash thing afloat (albeit barely) through all these years as trends come and go.

Vektor's potential being what it is, my expectations for their upcoming third album were astronomically high. I raised the bar even higher for this album, since, well they already raised it once themselves with Outer Isolation. Sure enough, Vektor did what an avid listener of the band would expect--they took all the quirky, proggy elements that set them apart from the riffraff of rethrash and gave them a little more spotlight on Terminal Redux. This is hands down Vektor's most ambitious, dense and complex album to date. There's more riffs, more things crammed into the riffs, more atmospheric diversions--and to top it all off, DiSanto even shows off his singing voice a little bit. Put it all together, and the intent is clear: to go farther and harder than any other Vektor albums have ever gone before.

Does it work? Eh, yes and no. This is still Vektor, thankfully enough. They have kept the core riffing style that makes them a good band intact, they've kept the songwriting skills and musicianship that make them a great band intact as well, but what's missing is that touch of the exceptional. They're certainly trying to obtain it, no doubt, but the more Vektor forces it, the less it reveals itself.

I think a lot of my issues with this album lay in how the tracks were ordered. "Charging the Void", a nine-minute behemoth that throws everything and the kitchen sink at you right off the bat (including some tremolo riffing that sounds reminiscent of modern black metal a la Krallice), has no business being the opener to the album. I know that seems like a really minute complaint, but it really throws off how the rest of Terminal Redux plays out. It's by far the most complex, diverse and challenging song on the album, so it feels like the band blows their load way too early, making the rest of the album feel less spectacular. "Cygnus Terminal" is paced much more steadily and grows a lot slower, so I really don't see why they didn't just make that the opener and stick "Charging the Void" somewhere in the middle. Maybe they were worried that "Cygnus Terminal" has a similar sort of structural build that "Cosmic Cortex" does? Who knows. I think if they put "Charging the Void" right before "Ultimate Artificer" that would have been ideal, because then the album would go from "Mountains Above the Sun" into a massive two-song display of riff fuckery.

My problems with how the album flows likely just stem from the bigger qualm I have about Terminal Redux: the technical stuff isn't nearly as good as I would have hoped. I've never had a problem with it before, but while turning the leads up to 11 when they were already at 10, Vektor borrowed a lot from modern postblack. The aforementioned Krallice is definitely comparable aesthetically at certain times, and any time the riffs are tremolo'd and higher up on the fretboard they tend to remind me of a more playful Bosse-de-Nage. I may just be hearing that because I'm quite familiar with postblack and less familiar with modern prog-thrash, but at the end of the day Vektor's always had a hint of black metal dotting their sound and it's more prominent than it ever has been on Terminal Redux. Normally additional black metal in a band's sound would leave me jumping for joy, but it doesn't work as well melded with the technicality of Vektor's music.

Thus, we arrive at the locus of the problem. Amidst carefully integrating outside influences, writing these chaotic, sprawling epics and giving everything an otherworldly sci-fi sort of vibe, Vektor forgot to do one thing: thrash. They're still ostensibly a thrash metal band, but the parts of this album that are straight-up definitive Thrash Fucking Metal tend to serve more as the transitions into the cosmic atmospheres, hyperspeed Schuldineresque noodling and Krallice riffs. Sure, I said earlier that everything that makes Vektor a great band is still present in some form on Terminal Redux; but somewhere along the way, Vektor forgot that they were originally a thrash band. You could see on Outer Isolation that they were beginning to evolve into something else entirely, and Terminal Redux has an extra degree of separation from that thrashy core. There's certainly a lot of stuff going on in the riffs, and many are decidedly thrash metal when abstracted from the bigger picture, but the classic 80s vibe that moments like the beginning of "Oblivion" gave you are completely absent at this point in the band's career. I can't help but feel that, despite my mostly disparaging sentiments towards rethrash, the lack of thrashiness on Terminal Redux is to the detriment of the album as a whole.

Fortunately, it's not just the flashy technical stuff that's been given more time and care. Vektor is surprisingly excellent at crafting some serious feels (it's probably the most underrated aspect of the band) and they've given the ballads plenty of time to breathe on this album. Clean vocals appear in traces in the opening track, but they really come into their own on "Collapse" and though DiSanto isn't operatically trained or anything like that he holds down the fort. "Collapse" is probably my favorite track on the album, actually--it's like a better version of "Accelerating Universe", and that song was already fucking excellent with its long-ass build into some really emotional thrash. It doesn't overstay its welcome and provides a nice change of pace by the time "Recharging the Void" comes around, and shit, when "Collapse" really starts picking up I was actually fighting back a tear or two.

In general, the latter half of this album is much stronger than the former. Seems like they were really excited to get all the new ideas and crazy wank out right away, and Terminal Redux is very technically impressive right off the bat, but for my money the album becomes a lot more enjoyable once "Psychotropia" comes in and steadies the pace just a tad, and it only gets better from there. Am I going to tell you that you shouldn't check out this album? No. You should definitely check this out. This is one of those rare bands that's brilliant in a stale genre and they're right around their creative peak, so yes, you should absolutely check this out. All of the performances are spot on, as the band has only gotten better in terms of their playing ability. Blake Anderson is a fucking maniac and continues to make pretty much anything Vektor writes sound intense as fuck. If you want to hear just how much Blake contributes to the band with his drumming, go pull up the demo version of "Tetrastructural Minds" they recorded when he wasn't in the band yet. No offense to the old drummer, he holds it down fine, but you can tell there's just so much more going on in Blake's version.

I will say, however, that if you're new to the band, you should probably give their first two albums a spin before you try out this one. Not only will you have a better understanding of where Terminal Redux is coming from, but it will be easier to see why it doesn't quite reach the bar that Outer Isolation set. This is still good and all, but it's the weakest Vektor full-length and I can already feel myself turning into that lame elitist who only likes the first two albums.

The hype surrounding this album is very real. Just a few days after its release and I've yet to hear anything negative about it, whether it be IRL or on the internet. Easily considered a contender for album of the year by many, and we're not even halfway through 2016. In the spirit of this seemingly universal praise, I'll be the voice of dissent and start my review of this album with what I didn't like about it.

Terminal Redux is a highly technical concept album, quite lengthy and loaded, both musically and lyrically. Though I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi themes, I felt compelled to dive into this story. The problem is that there's just too damn much going on. These guys packed a proper fucking novel into this album, and while that can be admirable in its own right, combined with the music it is hard to follow. Vektor is known for the plethora of riffs they offer, the high speed and dissonance of said riffs, and the sudden and frequent tempo changes. This is the kind of music that grabs your full attention, and listening to this I feel like I have no attention left to give to the lyrical narrative. I'll be trying to get into the story and let it take over when a crazy ass riff will come out of nowhere and I start headbanging, which makes it pretty fucking hard to follow the damn narrative. This sort of makes the album frustrating to listen to, as you always feel like you should be getting more out of it and you just can't because the song composition won't let you.

This problem could have been partly avoided if they had simply structured the songs differently and not placed jarring tempo changes right on top of important parts of the lyrical narrative. The tempo changes and multitude of riffs are usually thought of as Vektor's strong points, but if anything, this album could have used just a little less of each. The biggest offenders here are "Cygnus Terminal" and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)", songs that are replete with spacey dissonant riffs that ultimately feel like they last too long or they just shouldn't be there in the first place. There are some that are quite average but they last too long just because the verse isn't over yet and they have to go along with it, which goes back to the previous problem of the narrative being too long or not placed within the song structure in a way that wouldn't hinder the experience. Some of the transitional riffs also could have been a little shorter, which would make this album a little easier to listen to on a casual occasion.

This album is anything but casual. That isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, but it usually signals a lack of memorability and replay value. If there is one thing that Black Future and Outer Isolation have over Terminal Redux, it's memorable songs and riffs. The sheer ambition of this album has resulted in a relative lack of individual memorable moments that I would want to revisit in this album. There are some, to be sure, like the highly praised ending to "Recharging the Void", but compared to its predecessors, Terminal Redux lacks the instantly recognizable gems in the vein of "Forests of Legend" or "Tetrastructural Minds". Again, this isn't a bad thing in itself, but it certainly means I will listen to this album less if I feel like I have to devote an hour and fifteen minutes every time I spin it.

Having said that, Terminal Redux is superior to Vektor's previous works in terms of consistency. Get rid of your skip button, there is zero filler to be found here. Sure, they could have trimmed the fat off some of the riffs and interludes, but there is no filler individual song. Every track works, and the song order couldn't have been better. If there's one negative thing I would have to say about the riff structure, it's that it feels too tense. Especially in the first 2/3 of the record, it's fast and unrelenting. While we do get some considerable release in "Collapse" and "Recharging the Void", I would have liked some brief moments of standard happier thrash-break style riffs among the long techno-madness passages.

These guys are talented musicians and the superb production highlights all of Vektor's elements perfectly. The riffs. The riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiffs. This is what this band is known for. For the most part the riffs are spacey and busy, and they sound sharp, clear, and sufficiently clinical, not unlike something you would hear in one of the classic tech trash albums by the likes of Watchtower, Toxik, or Coroner. David DiSanto's screech sounds like Schmier's best impression of early Chuck Schuldiner and has been criticized by some, but I could not imagine Vektor with any other type of vocals. They just fit the music perfectly and they add to the alienating, dissonant, eccentric style this band offers. Frank Chin gives us some sweet bass lines a la "Accelerating Universe", with the highlight coming about 5 minutes into "Psychotropia" in the form of an alternating solo between Chin's bass and Nelson's guitar. The drumming is solid, with plenty of exciting fills to go around and more tempo changes than my poor brain can handle, complete with the occasional blast beats accompanied by blackish riffs that wouldn't be out of place in a Desaster or Destroyer 666 record.

Despite my qualms, I think this is a truly remarkable record. As mentioned again and again by supporters of this album, it's full of technical excellence, which is not too hard to find by itself in the metal world, but the difference is that it has soul. Make no mistake, this isn't by-the-numbers "hey look I can shred" metal. There is strong songwriting, there is heart, and there is a team of four dudes behind this record that sounds like they truly enjoy writing and playing this music. If you're looking for some ambitious, aggressive yet melodic, perplexing yet satisfying, precise yet primitive thrash metal, look no further; Vektor delivers.

So I've been listening to what is likely my most anticipated record of all time for almost a week now, and I finally feel like I've heard it enough times now to properly review it. I’ve been a huge Vektor fan for years. I first discovered them in 2012 via goofing around on youtube while I should have been doing physics homework. I was in ninth grade. The year before, they had released their sophomore full length Outer Isolation, which to this day remains one of my favorite albums of all time. At that age, my taste in music was beginning to transition from the grunge I had listened to in eighth grade (Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots) to the more in-your-face aggressive heavy metal bands that emerged in the mid-eighties (Metallica, Testament, Iron Maiden, Overkill, Slayer). However, none of those bands really qualified among the growly-scary-ultra technical metal bands that have populated most of my listening hours since the end of sophomore year. Vektor was the first of those bands that I really fell in love, and for this reason they hold a special place in my heart. I still listen to Outer Isolation and their debut LP Black Future fairly often. And a couple days ago on May 5th, after four long years of waiting, I got to hear their third full length record, Terminal Redux.

As frustrated as I was every time this album’s release date was pushed back in a taunting series of delays that began in 2014 when it was originally supposed to come out, I never really gave up hope. In fact, my expectations would build every time it happened. Finally, last February, the band announced that the final release date was May 6th, 2016. There was also something special to me about the fact that it was being released on my last official day of high school, because I’d spent all four years of high school waiting for this album to come out. However, my expectations apparently weren’t unrealistic enough. Terminal Redux exceeded my expectations by no small margin. It's about 73 minutes long, but by the time you're done listening to it, it only feels like half an hour has gone by. And I don't know whether that's because the songwriting is brilliant and engaging from start to finish, or because Vektor plays their instruments so fucking fast that they interfere with their listener's ability to properly perceive and experience the linear progression of time. Whatever it is, I don't care, because no matter how long this album is, I can’t help but immediately start replaying it the second it’s done.

As expected, the musicianship and song structures on here on this thing are immaculate. The guitar work, for one, is stunning, and David DiSanto and Erik Nelson do a great job cramming an album’s worth of riffs into every song on this record without making them sound bloated, unfocused, or busier than necessary. They also play off each other really well, oftentimes taking turns playing pummeling riffs while the other plays a complementary melodic crescendo that provides the song with an epic atmosphere. The solos on here are great too, my favorite so far probably being the solo to Pteropticon, which is played so fast I can barely process which notes are being used. It works though. Frank Chin’s bass parts and Blake Anderson’s drums act as the spinal cords to these songs that hold them together in spite of their often long, winding, and bizarre structures. It’s also worth noting that Anderson’s drums have a timbre about them that’s kind of blunt and compressed, much like the drumming heard on Fallujah records. However, in Vektor’s case, this actually works really well and makes the drums stick out a lot more among their machine gun guitar work while the drums on Fallujah records sometimes detract from the atmosphere they create. That’s not meant as a knock on Fallujah whom I love as well, but I think their drum sounds are better suited for Vektor’s music.

Then of course, there are David DiSanto’s growls, which are probably the foremost detail of Vektor’s sound that makes them recognizable among other thrash bands. The noises that come out of this man’s throat are downright ridiculous. He sounds kind of like Sound Of Perseverance era Chuck Schuldiner if Chuck’s larynx was lined with brass and his lungs were the sizes of industrial garbage bags. On previous Vektor releases, his vocals seemed to be mixed to be slightly louder than they are here, which made them the first thing one would notice in Vektor’s sound. However, on Terminal Redux, DiSanto’s vocals are just as prominent as the guitars, and he’s not screaming as high as he possibly can for the whole record. The growls in some passages here are a lot more subtle which allows the instrumentation in these songs to shine out more as well as make DiSanto’s balls-to-the-wall high pitched false chord screams all the more powerful when they do come up in these songs. That said, it feels really weird calling DiSanto’s vocals “subtle” even in comparison to themselves because his vocals are about as subtle as Carach Angren’s last record, but still, my point stands.

And yeah, Vektor is a thrash metal band, but lumping them in the same category of every beer-chugging, vest sporting, 80's revivalist Exodus clone that's polluted the metal scene since Municipal Waste released The Art Of Partying would be a grave mistake. Sure, it has plenty of fast-as-balls headbanging mosh-friendly riffs, but there's so much more than that. Throughout this record, Vektor employs backing choruses, opera vocals, a jazz guitar solo, clean vocals, shrieking black metal wretches, inhuman tempos, and time signatures that I can't reasonably believe the band wrote into these songs without the assistance of a graphing calculator. It seems as if Vektor's portfolio of musical influences has increased as well on this project. I don't know if that's because they intentionally wanted to try things that other bands were doing or just had their own ideas to vary up their sound with this project, but there are moments on here where I hear traces of Devin Townsend, Pink Floyd, Yes, and there's even a moment on the albums epic closer Recharging The Void, where this scream comes out of nowhere in the middle of these reverberated dueling guitar passages from which I get a strong Deafheaven vibe. Then of course, there are still plenty of moments where I hear the same bands that Vektor has always drawn influence from (Kreator, Death, Emperor, Absu, Voivod, etc). None of that's to say that this record is even slightly derivative, just pointing out some musicians whom they seemed to have shared some compositional ideas with.

Another thing that sets this album apart in Vektor's own discography is the super cohesive flow of the record. On both of Vektor's previous full lengths respectively titled Black Future and Outer Isolation, there were a handful of songs that were originally demos from the bands early years rerecorded with superior production. Now, I don't mean to degrade those albums cause they're incredible and those songs deserved to be rerecorded, but the fact that every song on Terminal Redux was specifically written for this LP gives Vektor the opportunity to string every track together in a manner they hadn't been able to before. The best example of this is the drum-laden transition from the instrumental track Mountains Above The Sun into Ultumate Artificer.

Did I mention that the lyrics on here tell a conceptual sci-fi narrative? Cause yeah, there's that too. Although I'm still a little fuzzy on the narrative, Terminal Redux tells the story of an astronaut who was floating around space as an isolation test subject. He ends up escaping, and somewhere along the way discovers a mineral that holds the key to immortality, which provides him with the opportunity to rise to power within the intergalactic Cygnus Regime. Again, I still have a lot more lyrical analysis to do, but that's basically the plotline.

Overall this is an outstanding album that was totally worth the wait. I haven't been able to listen to anything else in the days since it's come out, and this might very well be my new favorite album of all time. Either way, Terminal Redux is a flawless piece of music that I'd urge anybody who's into extreme metal to check out, or any open minded individual with a profound appreciation for music.

"I think I'm losing my mind..."

Thus begins Vektor's latest LP, picking up right where Outer Isolation left off. In fact, it quite literally picks up where that album left off, with the first track ("Charging the Void") beginning with the same muffled sounds that form the final notes on Outer Isolation. These tones build until our protagonist (Isolation Subject 5, as we learn in the second track, "Cygnus Terminal") whispers the aforementioned words regarding his diminishing sanity. The riff that follows is the embodiment of insanity. In short, what an intro!?

The remainder of the opening track is part vintage Vektor (with DiSanto's distinctive rasps, growls, and shrieks layered over blistering, technical thrash riffs), and part Cynic/Devin Townsend/extreme prog wet dream. Charging the Void singularly embodies the evolution of Vektor, from the raw, unbridled sci-fi power of Black Future, to the slightly more refined but somehow-just-as-good Outer Isolation, to the soaring genre-bending epic that is Terminal Redux. Some may dislike the more progressive elements on this album ("Collapse" and "Recharging the Void" have to be heard to be believed, but may turn off some hardcore thrash fans), but to me they're right at home. Vektor has always pushed the envelope, and they continue to do so here. Given the heavenly subject matter, it's fitting.

The lyrics tell a story that is typical Vektor -- there's a reason that the band's slogan is "sci-fi or die." Much will undoubtedly be written about the space opera told in these ten tracks, but in short, one of the Isolation subjects from the previous album has "awoken" and discovered a particle that provides extended life. He brings his discovery back to the evil empire that sent him into isolation in the first place, and seeks to swing the balance of power that they've exerted over the galaxy back in favor of their oppressed subjects. In so doing, he becomes a sort of tyrant himself. The lyrics, by themselves, do a phenomenal job bringing this concept to life. Set to music, it's almost too much... It will take several spins to fully appreciate this masterpiece on all levels, but you MUST listen with the lyrics in front of you. It's mind blowing what they've accomplished here. This could easily be a best-selling graphic novel, or better yet, a movie (preferably animated) with the album as soundtrack.

A track-by-track commentary here would be overwhelming (as others have mentioned), but suffice to say that there are no weak points. Even "Mountains Above the Sun," which is essentially just the intro to "Ultimate Artificer," is brilliant. It's a well-placed, melodic interlude that offers a much needed breather after "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)" - my personal favorite track - and ends with a riff that could have formed the backbone of it's own track had Vektor not chosen to weave it so skillfully into "Ultimate Artificer."

The album really has to be experienced as a whole, but If I had to pick highlights, I'd go with "LCD" and "Recharging the Void." "LCD" contains some of the sickest Vektor riffs to date. It's also the fastest track on the album, which accentuates the stellar breakdown in the middle. The lyrics not only fit the album's concept, but they're also powerful social commentary in their own right. On "LCD," DiSanto laments our growing dependence on technology, snarling about

Parasites of technology
Your addiction is a disease
No regrets of a wasted life
You cannot touch what you see

"Recharging the Void" is a beautiful track that blends so many genres, tempos, and themes that it can only be something conjured by Vektor.

Terminal Redux is Vektor as its peak, and should not be missed.

Years have passed since we were last graced with Outer Isolation. During that time our expectations skyrocketed, and the band was given a new place in the metal world. This is their very first concept album, and their first release off of their new label Earache. The Mothership has finally landed, It's now time to listen to what our thrashing space warriors have prepared for us this time.

"Charging the Void" Gives us a taste of what is to come throughout the album. Vektor takes elements of their previous records and introduces new ones. One of these new elements are the soul singers and clean vocals, usually if a metal band of this caliber does this they're taking some risk. However, Vektor includes them in a way that doesn't take away from the music, they instead add to the atmospheric sound. The other new element is the conceptual idea throughout the entire album, for Vektor's first time recoding a concept album they did a superb job. All of the songs seem to flow seamlessly into another, the lyrical theme tells the story of a test subject and his rise to power within the all-controlling Cygnus Regime. His ultimate goal is to restore balance within the galaxy by controlling the ebb and flow of life and death. After regaining his position as a top-ranking General, he incites a coup within Cygnus and takes command of their forces. However, as time passes, it becomes clear to him that power is just an illusion. Not only is this music, but also an epic audiobook!

The album takes some twists and turns. It's diverse, going from an all out frenzy of riff majesty to a more calmer, melodic, and emotional approach. On songs such as "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)", "Pteropticon", and "Psychotropia" feature the bands most aggressive sound. While on songs "Cygnus Terminal", "Collapse", "Pillars of Sand", and "Recharging the Void" showcase their calmer side while retaining consistent brutality. The final track "Recharging the Void" has become one of my favorite Vektor songs, Everything Vektor has ever done is compiled and presented so well. The song becomes even more interesting as it includes quick snippets of the other songs on the album. You are reminded of your journey throughout your listen on how far you've come, an amazing experience indeed. One final thing I can say about the song is its ending, which is a surprise and a satisfying note to end on.

Even though it's still pretty early in the year, I place this album as one of the top contenders of album of the year. Vektor have created a thrasherpiece, and one that I'll find myself returning to from time to time. This makes up for our dose of Sci-Fi that one movie failed to deliver us late just last year. SCI-FI or DIE!!!

Recommended tracks:
I'd say all of them as this album is more of an experience, but If I had to narrow it down it would be "Psychotropia", "Recharging the Void", and "LCD (Liquid Crystal Disease)".

I remember back in November, 2015. Earache posted the release for 'Ultimate Artificer' on their YouTube channel. I couldn't help but feel strangely underwhelmed by the song. It wasn't terrible - but it didn't jump out and strike me as being anything too special. For a band that has wrote songs like Dark Nebua and Outer Isolation, Ultimate Artificer seemed to be somewhat of a let down. It really raised the scepticism I felt for this album. Having been waiting for 4 years (at the time) for a new Vektor song - I was expecting something more.

It seemed like the album could no nothing but let me down at that time. I consider Black Future to be a master-work, and somehow, Outer Isolation to be superior. There was absolutely no way Terminal Redux could live up to those heights. And with Ultimate Artificer, it seemed like it wouldn't.

But, I was wrong - I was so, so wrong.

It takes some incredibly gifted songwriting to be able to write a song like 'Pteropticon', and a song like 'Collapse' and have them both work on the same album. Especially given the reputation Vektor has as a thrash metal band that blends progressive and black metal genres into one. Something that gets heavily overlooked, though - is the bands sense of melody. You remove some of the distortion from the guitars, and put a clean vocalist in the mix and you have an album that would fit right in alongside some power metal giants, too.

As much as I would love to do a track by track review of this, I feel as if I would end up writing an unbearably long review - as I pick out every little twist, modulation or climax that the album builds to. From the opening track 'Charging the Void' the album sets clear on its course. Progression, aggression and melody. The use of two supremely talented soul singers on this and the closer track really, really elevate it. It's such an ingenious and unique touch that really lifts both those songs to new heights.

The album continues in standard Vektor fashion. The main difference is that everything has been ramped up beyond 11. A thrash metal core which is constantly spiced up with added touches of progression, melody, ambience or aggression. It never seems to stagnate.

But then when the album seems to be drawing dangerously close to stagnation - they throw the wildest curve-ball into the mix they possible could. After 50 minutes of brain-battering, atom-splitting progressive thrash, they slow it down completely. A song that will make or break the album for many people. 'Collapse'. The easiest comparison I could make would be, 'To Live is to Die', by Metallica - but with vocals. It almost feels like a ballad, with winding acoustic melodies; a fantastic classical solo - and fist pumping melody breaks that really elevate it.

They don't finish there, though. The closing track 'Recharging the Void' comes next. It's really a song that needs to be heard to believe. There are so many changes and twists in this song - it does a beautiful job of tying up every end in the music, and the story. The soul singers make a return, with haunting choirs and chanting behind the ambience, and the climaxes. It's a master-work of songwriting, and the benchmark for all other bands that supposedly 'push their genres forward' has been set.

Vektor were a band that pushed the boundaries of thrash metal wildly. And while they may not have been as completely original as some claimed them to be - they were wildly creative. And that is still the case, and they have truly perfected that which they built towards.

My recommendation - read the lyrics as you listen. The concept is incredibly well written and thought through. Even introspective at points. It needs to be properly digested and appreciated.

The lyrics touch on an interesting point. "At the Zenith, there is nowhere to go. Nowhere to go but down." And one must ask, have Vektor reached their Zenith?