Vital Remains – Let Us Pray

The album cover art is horrifically done with some pathetic bad taste, the music however is NOT. Vital Remains are yet another pioneer of the old school death metal scene from the early nineties. Let Us Pray stands as an outstanding testimony to this fact. The band emerged late under the influence of earl American death metal bands but steers away from the usual topics of mutilated gore and corpses to make music on Satanism, using an intensive riffing style and rhythmic inflection for structural purposes. Nothing short of an instant classic, Let Us Pray is one dark, evil nihilistic record.

Within this idea, the band made death metal with riffing to Floridian death metal style, diving into dark passages of sound with a good, decent help from keyboards that helps in creating that essential dark vibe in the sonic atmosphere. The music that comes out subsequently skillfully changes its tempo mid-air and drives in the melody with percussive drumming technique and some well devised solos. The structure is well scripted which sees synchronized riffing of notes in even phases to go along with the music. The core of each song is revealed in patterns as the overall song composition slides around a fundamental rhythmic drive over which it gradually evolves.

Now to mention Vital Remains is to mention Glen Benton, but surprisingly the vocals are done by one Jeff Gruslin whose growls are rather dark and obscure. But job done well. The album stomps the ground on a good groove with the help of its cold guitar tone and crude production to yield something that’s nothing short of a brutal onslaught on your senses. Clearly Let Us Pray is a flawless album that has gone down the history of death metal as an all time classic.

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