Defiant Imagination

I think that if you haven’t heard Quo Vadis before, you may pass over this album, and miss out on a great one. Yes, that’s right, Steve DiGiorgio is on bass for this album, so if you want to hear his talent, you’ll have to give it a listen. He’s as good as ever, giving new life to Quo Vadis’ already awesome sound. I would hate it if Quo Vadis were classified as melodic death, as I hardly see how they fit the genre. What these guys do is quite innovative, as I’ve yet to hear anybody quite like them. Day Into Night was quite an awesome album when it came out, and I had some reservations about this album meeting or exceeding my expectations for this new cd. What I’ll say is that it comes close, but falls short in some small areas. This album is somewhat more aggressive than past efforts of the band, and I don’t know whether it was a change in lineup that caused the change in direction, or whether they’re trying a new sound. What Quo Vadis does best is create a soothing metal. I don’t know how else to describe it. A lot of the guitar work sounds soft, even though it’s coming at you at rapid-fire speed. And by soft, I don’t mean weak sounding, just that it just kind of melts when you hear it. Needless to say that I was a little bit disappointed when they tried to make this album harder, because some of it comes off as a little forced. After listening to the cd several times, some of the riffs feel a little repetitive, almost as if they found a riff that they thought was particularly menacing and decided to include it in various forms throughout the cd. I can see where listeners would compare these guys to the likes of Death, especially in part to the amazing fretwork of Bart Frydrychowicz and the other guy that I’m not too familiar with. Combined with DiGiorgio, and some intricate drumming (very well done), I’d have to say that this album is still leagues above any of the melodic death crowd. The vox is mostly death metal, and the band jumps from their trademark evisceration of several layers of fretwork throughout most of the songs. Hopefully your head will be banging. The major difference between this album and previous ones is that I can’t really name any standout tracks. They’re all fairly good, but none of them compare in catchiness or remembrance to the stuff off of Day Into Night. If you want an earful of technical death, you should get your hands on this cd, and other Quo Vadis material.