Into Cold Darkness

Well, Vital Remains has done it again. They released yet another terrifying and brutal album following their debut masterpiece, with songs consisting of much quicker tempos and heavier, angrier riffs and vocals. Into Cold Darkness, though not as astonishing as Let Us Pray, is one intense album with some amazing head-banging material!

Vital Remains were such an obscured band with a raging fire burning in their hearts in these early days long before the arrival of Glen Benton, not to say those last two albums sucked, but the '90s were clearly a better time for Vital Remains. Vital Remains changed their slow musical style heard on Let us Pray and incorporated faster and heavier songwriting and for the first time in the band's career, blast-beats were introduced on this album. There's a stronger sense of brutality on Into Cold Darkness, but the music still allows a bit of slower, sinister atmospheric moments (the middle of the song Immortal Crusade for example) to enter the fast brutality of these songs. These slower atmospheric moments have a strong black metal influence too, turning everything from raging death metal chaos to this cold, darkness that will remind you of the atmosphere surrounding old Norwegian black metal bands.

The musicianship is fantastic again, just as it was on Vital's previous work. The guitars have an awesome tone for the fast riffs that are played. The blast-beats and drumming patterns are very professional, they never go off tempo, and they sound like actual drums and not machine guns like on many digitally-produced death metal albums today. Jeff's vocals are just as savage as they were on Let Us Pray and just roaring with vehemence.

The song structures are just as unconventional as the song structures of Let Us Pray, in which the riffs change a lot throughout each song and it mixes black metal riffs with death metal riffs. No neo-classical melody enters Vital's music yet, however. Nothing is that repetitive at all, and this album's musical style perfectly defines the sound of blackened death metal, flawlessly.

The two covers on Into Cold Darkness, Dethroned Emperor and Countess Bathory, are performed well. They're definitely not as excellent as the originals, but it seems as if Vital took these songs and performed them with their own style, as if they were trying to not sound like Celtic Frost or Venom, but perform these songs the way how they would if they wrote them.

Overall, Into Cold Darkness is an intense release and an excellent followup to their debut. They truly define the sound of blackened death metal much better than any other band with this overlooked release.

The shadow of Morbid Angel loomed so large over the post 1989 world of death metal, that it’s shade seemed almost endemic. And while an inspiration from Florida’s lords of all fevers and plagues was not unwelcome, the slavish devotion that some bands engaged in was not a sign of respect, but only a lack of individual invention of their own. Vital Remains escaped not by being immune to the influence, but by bringing their own carefully crafted slant to it. And my use of the word craft is deliberate, because I know of few other death metal bands who write with the obvious sense of quality control and compositional care that Vital Remains always have.

Right from the opening cut (“Immortal Crusade”) of this, their second album, that signature attention to creating dramatic satanic metal is abundant. Speed is used, but only as an accent to the musical maelstrom, not as it’s center. And although it would be wrong to call the band’s music melodic, the structures of these songs flow so well, that they achieve lasting impact without overt melody. Singer Jeff Gruslin repeats the fine job he did on the band’s 1992 debut Let Us Pray, providing a fine balance between clarity and the sainted roars this music is both worshipped and hated for containing. Seven chapters of the band’s own songs appear here, as does an appropriately gruff but entirely reverent cover of Celtic Frost’s classic “Dethroned Emperor.” This, as with all of the work from this band, proves that death metal’s blasphemies, when applied in the context of considered writing are an impressive heretical experience.

And for those who question the truth of the genre’s musical value, Vital Remains (along with Morbid Angel, Immolation and Incantation) are a fine place to begin dispelling any such notion. “Triumph through darkness, thy kingdom is ours.” Man, they are not kidding.

Like many others, my introduction to Vital Remains was with their breakthrough album, "Dechristianize". It was hailed all over as a "death metal classic" and while I enjoyed the album a lot, after time the constant speed got to be annoying. There was little to no variety; everything was constant blast-beating, and the album's ridiculously thin, trebly production took away from the experience. I usually have to listen to the album with the bass boost on its highest setting.

The thing is, people were praising this band as the best thing since canned beer, when they had no idea Vital Remains was no newcomer to the death metal scene. They formed in 1989 in Rhode Island, around the same time period as most other well-known death bands. I felt compelled to explore the band's back catalogue, so I ordered "Into Cold Darkness", which was released by Peaceville in 1995. Also, a nice "fuck you" to Peaceville for the shoddy re-issue package. Aside from the tracklisting, there were barely any credits at all. But listening to this album, I can safely say I prefer their earlier period, by far, to their Glen Benton era. The album starts off with the ominous bells of "Immortal Crusade", which breaks down into a dark, sinister marching pace midsong, backed with clashing gongs and atmospheric keyboards. Jeff Gruslin's voice may not be as deep as Benton's, but he does an adequate job and even uses some double-tracking in some areas. "Under The Moon's Fog" has a main riff which sounds a LOT like the slow, creepy riff from Mayhem's "Freezing Moon". The keyboards add a cold, black metal-type atmosphere to this song. Tony Lazaro's guitar work was fairly competent at this point, and from here he'd begin to develop his epic, flashy leads. The music reminds me of Suffocation in spots, as well as early Bathory and Celtic Frost The bass, done by Tom Supkow I believe, is also audible in spots. Drumming is your typical death metal double-bass, hammer-to-your-skull attack. The production is decent, standard production for mid-nineties death metal. "Crown of the Black Hearts" is one of the faster songs on here, as with "Scrolls of a Millenium Past". The album as a whole speeds up towards the end, with the short, speedy, insane sounding "Angels of Blasphemy". The album could be longer, but with songs this good, the length is a minor gripe. There are also two covers; a cover of Celtic Frost's "Dethroned Emperor" and Venom's "Countess Bathory".

This album stands apart from other death metal albums. There's more of an emphasis on atmosphere and groovy, thrashier riffs, whereas their most recent albums seem to focus on speed for speed's sake. So if you're curious to the beginnings of Vital Remains, I recommend this album.

Here we see Vital Remains still in a rather primordial period of their career. We don't have Dave Suzuki mercilessly smashing the drums, nor do we have Glen Benton growling away on vocals. Instead, it's Tony, Joe and old vocalist Jeff Gruslin doing what they do best. I have no idea who handles lead guitar and drums on here, but they're competent too.

The overall feel of the album is cold, an anomaly in death metal. Keyboards are used sparingly at key moments to create a really sinister atmosphere. The mid-section of "Immortal Crusade," for example, and the end of "Under the Moon's Fog," which recalls Mayhem's "Freezing Moon." Several songs rely a lot more on utter speed, like "Crown of the Black Hearts," and "Descent Into Hell," but there are great break downs. No, not dumbed down core breaks, but fucking heavy, thrash influenced breaks. Tony Lazaro certainly is a master of creating great riffs.

Jeff shines on here, as he did on the debut, with his unique voice. I don't know why he left the band, but it's certainly a shame that he did.

My biggest gripe here is the production. Where as the guitar tone, drums and everything else on Let Us Pray was unrestrained in an old school fashion, here it sounds like there is a good deal of compression on the guitars and possibly triggered bass drums (I'm not too sure on the latter, but the drum sound is certainly a bit restrained). Where a blasting section shows up, it just kind of cruises at a safe speed, instead of feeling chaotic and unrestrained. It adds a degree of coldness the the album, but a robotic coldness, not a permafrost coldness. Not good, but at least the heavier, midpaced parts still seem demonic.

And finally, curses and drat to Peaceville for the VERY SHITTY packaging on this "remaster." No lyrics booklet, and not even any fucking credits...who is with Joe, Tony, and Jeff on here? Barney the big purple fucking dinosaur?

There's something about Vital Remains that sets them apart from just about every other death metal band in existence. It's difficult to point out exactly what that special ingredient might be, but there is something potently evil and tenebrous in their music that can't fail to draw the listener into the folds of it's charnal embrace. This is a death metal band that, without pulling intricate melodic touches or letting the brutality slip but a fraction, can write nine minute songs on a regular basis that one is simply unable to escape from. I believe that "Into Cold Darkness" is the band's debut....but I may be incorrect in that assertion. In any case, it's not as incredibly evil as their crowning achievement, "Dawn of the Apocalypse", or as epic as the monumental "Forever Underground"....but the essential Vital Remains feeling is still here in abundance. The album's opener, "Immortal Crusade", is exactly the sort of reason Vital Remains is not a band to be passed off as a generic clone and forgotten. Fast ripping sections, slow brooding dirge moments, and the ocasional brief keyboard accent characterize this album as a whole. Production is certainly not as heavy as what the band would creat later, particularly "Dawn of the apocalypse"..but then, this is an early 90s death metal album and the sound is pretty much typical of that period...controlled, punchy but not terribly heavy. The vocals are somewhat generic, but what the hell....it's not really a major gripe. The album is short and never leaves room for boredom. There's also one of the better covers of Celtic Frost's classic "Dethroned Emperor" to close off the CD, and not surprisingly, VR pull it off admirably, particularly the solo section after the first chorus....which sounds genuinely creepy and gut churning as it really should, an effect that is noticeable on "Morbid Tales" but which is somewhat masked by the thin production. Anyway, this is not the best work Vital Remains have done, and probably not the greatest introduction to their sound..but anyone who enjoyed their other recordings should definitely have this, and anyone who comes across this in a used store should definitely snap it up. If one has the opportunity though, "Dawn of the Apocalypse" is probably the place to begin.