Helping the World to See

Honestly folks, what is the deal with Vehemence? I was really getting into Neuraxis, Avulsed and Lykathe when I came across people raving and drooling over Vehemence as the next great power in melodic death metal; citing God Was Created as one of the greatest death metal albums of all time.

It wasn't. It was a solid and interesting listen, but inconsistent and hamfistedly executed. Still, it showed promise.

Now, with fanboys still drooling over Vehemence and the new album, Helping the World to See, we see that promise thrown to the ground, stamped-upon vigorously indeed, and then swept into the dustpile of the great masses of generic death metal.

Helping... sees Vehemence attempt to make a more 'straightforward' death metal album, viz; less melody, more aggression. Considering the only interesting and promising thing on their second album was precisely the melody, they've shot themselves in the foot before they even start to take advantage of their ridiculously overstated reputation. Songs like the opener 'By Your Bedside', 'To The Taste', 'Darkness is Comfort', and 'We Are All Dying' (wish they were after hearing this) have no purpose in the death metal world other than filler. They recycle one bland riff after another with no feeling of purpose, no sense of progression, and no closure. The riffing itself hints at generic melody, but it is never expressed explicitly like it was sometimes quite successfully on God Was Created. Come to think of it, the only songs I can recall hearing good, definitive melody in on Helping... was 'Kill For God', and 'Alone in Your Presence'. The latter is an oddly misplaced ballad-type affair which does little to alleviate the tedium that sets into the album by then, while the former, although featuring an outstanding and powerfully emotional melodic riff, is amateurishly structured in a way that doesn't make effective use of said riff; after the interesting intro riffs, the sweet sweet melody that, for a moment seems to be the redemption of the album after the pointless 'By Your Bedside', pops straight-up after a pathetic 30 seconds!! Trust me, this riff is *beautiful*, but what use is it getting introduced after 30 seconds in a 3:44 song?! This is the kind of riff that should be built-up to, this is a CLIMAX riff, and Vehemence waste it at the start; feebly attempting a climax with much less impressive riffs and unimpressive staccatto rhythm sections. 'Kill For God', while a beautiful song in its own right, is epithetical of everything that is wrong with Vehemence's approach to their music. They have a talent for melody, and they repeatedly waste it away with structures that drag-on and discard energy amidst a torrent of generic death metal riffing and utterly aimless rhythm changes.

There just isn't enough here to reccommend to anyone who is either interested in aggressive death metal or melodic death metal. If you must hear Vehemence, spin God Was Created, but even that is overrated in a scene that has other bands running circles around Vehemence, and getting little to no attention for it.

10% for the beautiful but structural abortion that is 'Kill For God', and 5% for the stunning artwork.