Reviewed - 05/15/04

Helping The World To See
[Metal Blade]

Back in 2002, Vehemence made a small stir in the death metal community with their second album, 'God Was Created'. The band had added a strong melodic touch to a brutal death metal base, resulting in a fairly unique sound (Let's face it, brutal death is a genre that's hard to create a name for one's self in). With that excellent release, I was eagerly awaiting its followup. I won't say I'm disappointed, because 'Helping The World To See' is a fine slab of brutality, but the band hasn't really progressed like I hoped they might.

The same basic sound is back: The ultra-thick guitar tones, dual vocal attack, and fantastic drumming is plentiful, but there isn't quite as much acoustic and clean guitar as on 'God Was Created'. The reason that album was so successful was the contrast of brutality with some truly beautiful clean passages. There are a few calmer moments on 'Helping The World To See', such as the intro to "You Don't Have To Be Afraid Anymore" and the cool instrumental, "Alone In Your Presence", but other than that, it's pretty much balls-out death metal. That being said, guitarists Bjorn Dannov and John Chavez have written some wicked riffs and dual harmony parts, at times reminiscent of Carcass. They are tight as hell, and in such a cluttered soundscape manage to maintain a clarity and separation that few death metal duos can. Drummer Andrew Schroeder is the real deal, displaying insane chops while pulling everything together.

The one thing that pulls this band down (and something that quite a few people had a problem with last time around) is the gutteral vocals of Nathan Gearhart. They can get rather monotonous, even with the higher screams of bassist Mark Kozuback to break things up. Gearhart's lyrics were very creative and original on 'God Was Created', but here they seem very pedestrian and unimaginative. Not that the lyrics are very discernible anyway, but a peek into the lyric sheet proved to be disappointing nonetheless. Gearhart's performance is solid, however some variety would have opened things up considerably.

'Helping The World To See' sports an odd production for a death metal album, and especially for a brutal death album. On the positive side, the guitars are captured beautifully, with mind-blowingly thick rhythm tones, clear lead tones, and solid acoustic tones. There is wonderful separation of guitar parts, with clearly discernible harmonies. The bass guitar is curiously loud in the mix (very odd for death metal), with a very fat tone. The problem in the production is in the drum and vocal recording/mix. The drums are just a hair too low in the mix, and it seemed to me at times that the bass was actually mixed higher than the drums. Vocally, Gearhart is obscured quite a bit, and sounds very muddy throughout the album. Even after quite a few listens, the jury's still out on the production here. Sometimes it seems to work, sometimes it falls flat.

While I was disappointed with 'Helping The World To See', it is still a solid piece of death metal. Vehemence have forged a sound that, with a little tweaking, could propel them into death metal stardom. The whole album seems a bit rushed, but even with the poor lyrics and flat production, Vehemence still puts many other bands to shame.