Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Vital Remains
Label: Century Media
Release: 2007
After a few years of intense touring, the American death metal champions are back after four years with the follow-up to Dechristianize. So how would you describe Icons of Evil? Pretty much as Dechristianize 2. Yep, Icons of Evil is a “copy-paste” of Dechristianize. Pretty much every element of the 2003 album shows up again on Icons of Evil – (way too) long tracks, worn-out dual vocals, merciless blast beats and endless salvos of double bass. Yep, all the death metal clichés. Luckily, there’s a fantastic lead guitar to counterbalance it, with melodic riffs, harmonic passages and neoclassical solos. So if you liked Dechristianize, you’ll get hard for Icons of Evil too.
Pig-squealing/grunting duties on the previous record were taken over by the legendary Glen Benton (Deicide), after Thorn got the boot for excessive drug abuse right after the release of Dawn of the Apocalypse. Babe the piglet returns on Icons of Evil too. Benton is, at least to me personally, one of the most boring death metal vocalists around. No matter how prominent he is in the mix, he always lacks variety and comes off totally washed out. But at least he fits with the rest of the musical elements: mighty and massive, but at the same time uninteresting and lifeless. Benton sounds like an aging death metal icon who has lost all will to free humanity from Christianity. Let me just go ahead and move on to the weakest part of Icons of Evil right here: the pathetic lyrics. Vital Remains stick to their lyrics formula like a drunk to a fence, and that formula is: write the same lyrics over and over under a different title, about killing and torturing Jesus, the “holocaust” against Christians and, of course, the big boss Satan. Instead of coming up with at least one intelligent argument against the Church as such, they’d rather write evil, evil lyrics that probably have 16-year-old metalheads snickering around the corner.
The next negative point is the typical, hackneyed death metal drumming, which follows the formula of transitions that stop for a riff and then attack with merciless blast beats and unstoppable double bass. Dave Suzuki, who plays lead guitar and chips in with backing vocals on top of the drums, deserves plenty of praise – if he lacks anything, it’s certainly not polished technique – but that’s simply not everything. The drums are also considerably spoiled by Rutan’s production, which is brutal to the core, but extremely sterile and predictable. You can barely hear the cymbals, since they’re drowned out by the snare (at least the snare sound is greatly improved compared to the previous record) and the bass drums. Cymbals just aren’t “evil,” I guess…
The only truly bright spot on the record is Dave Suzuki’s excellent lead guitar, though even that has a few shortcomings. Really impressive melodic riffs and fantastic neoclassical solos fly out from under Suzuki’s pointy fingers, but he repeats them ad infinitum and plays the same riffs until exhaustion. However good the solos are, they bring nothing new; if anything, they’re yet another copy of the solos from the previous record. This is where the biggest criticism lands: on the main songwriter, rhythm guitarist and bassist Tony Lazaro. It’s a real shame, because he and Suzuki in particular hold a huge amount of talent, which they’ve sadly confined within the rock-hard concrete limits of the death metal genre.
Sadly, the criticism doesn’t end there. The songs are as alike as two peas in a pod, all written to the same template, with the same tempo, very similar chord progressions, the exact same vocal pattern heard a million times before and the same pathetic lyrics. Another serious flaw is their length – they’re simply too long. The problem with Icons of Evil is that the band says everything it wants to say in three or four minutes, but doesn’t stop and stretches the songs out to seven, eight, even nine minutes. Tony Lazaro could really use a serious lesson in variety. You could cut about twenty minutes from this record and it wouldn’t even be noticeable. On the contrary, it would most likely even make it fresher.
I’d give Icons of Evil a very low score if it weren’t for Suzuki’s fantastic guitar saving it, even if it’s more or less the same as on the previous record. Otherwise, the record suffers from a severe lack of emotion, intelligence, artistic vision, originality and variety. All it manages to do with its extreme brutality is grab you by the throat like a sadist slowly squeezing the air out of your lungs, and all you see is his evil face laughing at you, peeling you down to the bone with its stench and rotten breath.
There are tons of bands that do what Vital Remains do far better, many times over. Icons of Evil serves up nothing but worn-out anti-Christian and Satanic clichés. If you’re curious how Vital Remains sound, reach for Dawn of the Apocalypse instead.
Lineup
Tony Lazaro – rhythm guitar
Dave Suzuki – lead guitar, bass guitar, drums
Glen Benton – vocals
Production
Erik Rutan
Tracklist
1. Where Is Your God Now 01:52
2. Icons of Evil 07:34
3. Scorned 08:41
4. Born to Rape the World 08:09
5. Reborn…The Upheaval of Nihility 07:41
6. Hammer Down the Nails 06:10
7. Shrapnel Embedded Flesh 06:47
8. ‘Til Death 09:13
9. In Infamy 06:16
10. Disciples of Hell 04:56
