Vader are one of the bigger and more consistent pure death metal bands to come out of Europe in the mid-90s. Since their debut, The Ultimate Incantation, Vader have been releasing high-quality death metal and touring consistently. Their latest tour sees them return to Manchester with a strangely black metal lineup in the form of Rise of Kronos and Skaphos.
Rise of Kronos from Hamburg (Germany) came first; their sound had a bit of a blackened tinge to it, which was more than welcomed by the small crowd. Rise of Kronos has a blend of death metal and black metal, which makes it easier for the average death metal fan to get into, more on that later…
There may be a death metal leaning, but the vibe was kvlt enough to spawn a whole orchard of invisible oranges and glorious hairography everywhere you looked. There was a solid mixture of death metal influence throughout, ‘Know Thyself’ sounds like it could have been an Obituary song in another universe and the amount of crushing breakdowns like on ‘Children of Leprosy’. ‘Poison of the Gods’ was a particular standout with its unhinged guitar solo and devastating breakdown.
Next up was Skaphos, and while the crowd was less ready to mosh and go crazy, there was a lot of visible fascination from the audience. Skaphos came on to throat singing and the band was adorned in Corpse paint and black metal attire as they shared the stage with a number of sigils that I didn’t recognise but still associated with the black metal movement and satanists. It was a good guess, most black metal deals with satan, right?
Jokes aside, Skaphos were an interesting band with a more atmospheric approach to black metal that took itself super seriously and the audience took a minute to get into it. There’s a divide between the death metal and black metal community but Skaphos seemed to stand directly in the middle with a healthy dose of folk metal thrown in for taste.
Skaphos are an interesting band but an acquired taste for sure, the slower chugging tracks helped Skaphos sound lean closer to death metal and that made them a bit more palatable to the death metal audience. It’s also worth noting that one of the guitar players is playing a Fender Strat which makes their heavy sound all the more impressive.
Vader finally took to the stage with the strangely catchy Helleluyah (‘God is Dead’), a heavy doom-laden track that features a lot of audience participation and call and response antics which aren’t common in death metal. Their set was full of these slower doom-y songs like ‘Dark Age’ that would chug and grind with immense power from their three guitar players. It’s also worth noting that Tomasz Halicki’s bass is half fretted and half fretless, which is a fascinating instrument even if I didn’t pick up on most of the fretless bass passages.
For those unaware, Vader are a Polish band, and there is a healthy Polish community in the North West of England which led to some spirited conversations between frontman Piotr Wiwczarek and the various Polish citizens of Manchester. As a monolinguistic British person, I can only assume these conversations were positive but it was still amazing to experience an admittedly small group of people coming together and transcend a language barrier through their love of death metal.
The set was a mixture of tracks throughout Vader’s discography with tracks from landmark albums like Litany and Black to the Blind but the focal point for the set seemed to be the brand new single, ‘Unbending’. This song hasn’t had much time to become a fan favourite but will earn its place soon with its use of bendy solos and rubbery riffing. There’s plenty of grinding tremolo-picked riffing like ‘The One Who Dreams’ and ‘Black to the Blind’ which also act as a showcase for the immensely powerful drumming of Michał Andrzejczyk and the instantly recognisable, unique vocals of Piotr Wiwczarek.
Vader are an under-appreciated force in the death metal scene and their list of amazing death metal barnstormers has no end; ‘Go to Hell’ and ‘Sothis’ stand out as personal favourites amongst this cataclysmic collection of vicious ragers. The set ended with ‘Lead Us’ and while the crowd wasn’t particularly large, it still became an insane swirling vortex of chaos as the final pit took over the centre of the room. The turnout was admittedly rather small but it was the dedication that mattered. Everyone came out on a Thursday to support live music, buy merch and have an amazing time moshing and screaming and anything you could think of at a death metal show.
Vader left the stage to the ‘Imperial March’ because no other song could make the intimidating energy that Vader has than the literal Darth Vader theme. Live music needs support and death metal is already a niche genre so any effort made to seeing bands like Vader live is important. Go see your favourite bands and support them however you can and they’ll return the favour by putting on a stellar show like this one.
