Vader -wt Blood / Reign Forever World -wl Metal Blade -wf If you don’t know who Vader is, you’re probably not as metal as you think you are. These guys are basically the Ricky Martins of the death metal world, consistently releasing wonderfully high quality death stuff with more skill and dexterity than most of their peers. -wm Not being the closest watcher of Vader in the world, and their press release being rather vague, I’m not sure what this release is. It appears to be a two-for-one package of EPs, including Blood and Reign Forever World. Truth be told, the songs on Blood are absolutely black, sinister, scathing and powerful, and I love them. The vocalist has a perfect combination growl/intelligible lyric vocal style that makes listening to death metal enjoyable. The tempo of “We Wait” is slower than usual, which helps add to the sludgy, dirty feel. The guitars have a perfect cross between a warm overdriven tone and Marshall stack sound, and the guitarists come up with some pretty evil-sounding riffs. -wm For the most part, though, the songs on both EPs are pretty fast, with occasional solos and lots of buzzsaw guitars. The songs on Reign Forever World have better production value, but they lack the creepy quality of the songs on Blood. In all, you get 16 songs from a seasoned and dedicated metal band who loves nothing more than blackness and evil. You really can’t go wrong with this. -wd Metal Blade: http://www.metalblade.com/ -wb Daniel Mitchell