Polish death metal veterans Vader continue to this day to be one of the leaders of the genre, delivering a string of quality albums that have seen their pummeling and technical style welcomed with positive reviews from both critics and fans alike. Sothis is their 1998 EP, here being reissued by Metal Mind Productions. Basically this is just under 25 minutes of music, with about half the tracks short interludes or intros into the main pieces. In essence, you get really just three good songs here, the brutal, Slayer-influenced "Sothis", the rampaging technical death metal "Vision and the Voice" (check out the absolutely killer drum work from Doc on this one), and the speed metal riffing meets blast beat heaven of "The Wrath". On these three cuts the band is firing on all cylinders, with lead singer/ guitarist Peter leading the charge with his strong vocals and powerful guitar playing. The rest? Well, like I mentioned they are basically evil sounding interludes featuring sound effects, chanting, or droning guitar passages. The band even throws in a weak cover of the Black Sabbath classic "Black Sabbath"-yes, even I was surprised at how bad this rendition was. Given the quality of almost everything Vader has done, you would have thought that they could have done a better job with this tune. Musically they get a nice evil & doomy feel, but vocally it just doesn't work. Overall there's just not enough music here, the three tracks I mentioned being excellent proof of the death metal talents of this Polish juggernaut, but the rest is pretty much throwaway.
Track Listing
1) Hymn To The Ancient Ones
2) Sothis
3) De Profundis
4) Vision And The Voice
5) The Wrath
6) R'Lyeh
7) Black Sabbath
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