Closed Frontiers

As ironic as it may sound, this álbum opened the frontiers for Vibrión, allowing them to record it at the Sunlight Studios. It’s known that by 1997 it was cliché to record an album there, but being the sucker that I am for Sunlight Studios-recorded stuff, how could I not give them credit for that? They could even work with names such as Fred Estby and Anders Lindstrom.

The fact of being able to record in Sweden was very favorable for the band and, as a result, the album’s production improved considerably respect to Diseased. The guitars have that chainsaw-sounding tone so characteristic from nineties’ Stockholm bands, like the one Dismember is known for. Guitarist Guillermo Giusti stepped outside the band and Alejandro Mangiacavalli was his replacement, and while some of the leads have improved in overall length, nothing has changed in terms of technicality or overall musicality. The drums sound more consistent and solid, while the bass is buried deep beneath the mix and although you can hear its final effect, unlike on Diseased, where you could hear it galloping underneath the guitars, it’s almost completely neutralized. Overall, things improved a lot on the production front, and the band now sounds stronger, louder and is tighter than it was ever before.

Even so, a good production is not enough to make an album work properly. You also need good music to go with it, and I find the songs on Closed Frontiers not as effective as those on Diseased. The riffing on this album is slightly more technical and there’s some tremolo-picking going on, but I actually miss those deadly and precise thrashing assaults of the previous album, which seem to be reduced to determined parts of some songs. The bending, groovy riffs are now more abundant, and at times they resemble something in the vein of Morbid Angel’s Domination, but they’re not as effective as the ones on that album or the ones on Diseased. There are some interesting riffs on “Closed Frontiers”, “Insufficient Systems” or “Reprisal”, but they’re quite bland and leave a lot to be desired.

Gus’ signature drumming is still there, and its empowered by the massive production work. Even though I tend to get a bit tired of his way of hitting the snare drum, I do have to commend him for his strength and endurance when executing his instrument, which is confirmed throughout the entire album with songs like the aforementioned “Closed Frontiers” or “What’s Left Behind”. And the same goes for Luis’ nihilistic barks, full of anger and unconformity.

As you may notice, the band’s performance is pretty good, but the problem is the lack of memorability and catchy hooks on the songs and music. Closed Frontiers has good intentions, but those intentions and ideas are not developed enough and the songs end up sounding all to samey, The lack of variety really holds back this album, and the inclusion of guiarist Alejandro Mangiacavalli to the band’s lines little does to break with the one-dimentional approach of the album. It has its good moments, and the Agnostic Front cover is well done, but for the most part it’s quite average. Vibrión’s end was sort of synchronized with the release of this album, as once the band returned from their European tour, Luis had to relocate abroad, more specifically to Belgium, due to residential problems and Vibrión was indefinitely put on ice.

Originally submitted to http://theforlornson.wordpress.com/