In technical death, precision is pretty much one of the most
important concepts. Yes, having interesting composition and a strong structure
is important, but precision and complexity is what the genre is all about
(hence the name TECHNICAL death). If someone has an idea in their head, and can’t
execute it, they might as well not be even trying. But in the case of Vale of
Pnath, anything having to do with precision and complexity is completely void
of error. In technical death metal, the member of the band that usually ends up
having the most trouble with precision and staying on track is the drummer. This
genre, in particular, has an immense number of drummers known for their skill,
creativity, talent, speed and technicality. Decrepit Birth, The Black Dahlia
Murder, The Faceless, Fleshgod Apocalypse, Spawn of Possession, Inherit
Disease, Brain Drill, Obscura, and many more technical death bands all have
drummers that are considered by many to be among the best out there; so that
alone gives Vale of Pnath a lot to live up to. And yes, I know that these guys
aren’t trying to be best tech death band ever, they’re new. But don’t let that
lower your expectations, because this drummer is a monster.
The drummer is not to be fucked with. Not just his speed,
but his ability to NEVER step out of line alone makes him easily comparable
with some of the better and more known drummers in the genre. His blast beats
are generic, which is something that I would like to see him work with on the
next record, but they’re still crushing. But his blast beats are the only
complaint that I have. Each fill that’s thrown out there is executed
differently, some of them being so interesting that a few people might have to
repeat that one section before continuing on with the rest of the song. This
happened to me over and over again with tracks like Legacy of Loss, Borne
Extinction, Sightless, and Time of Reckoning. This attention-grabbing ability
that the drummer has is something that can only be found in the best bands of
the technical death genre. On top of all that awesome shit, the way his drums
sound is very unique. Yes, there are certain things about how he sounds that
can be found on other records by other bands (for you nitpickers), but no other
drummer has put together a sound identical to that of the drums on The Prodigal
Empire.
Vale of Pnath has a vocalist that sounds extremely similar
to the vocals from Kansas tech death group Origin. All of the vocals are
exhales, primarily growls, and occasionally some screams. For those of you that
haven’t heard anything by Origin (there’s a problem if you haven’t) and need a
little bit more of a description than what I just gave you, I’ll elaborate a
bit more. The growls aren’t the extremely deep and guttural growls you might
like hearing (i.e. Opeth, The Faceless, Amorphis, Whitechapel, Scar Symmetry,
etc.). These growls are deep, but not like that. They’re more so in the realms
of being a lower mid-ranged growl, which is a pretty comfortable and easily interpreted
spot if you ask me. The difference between the vocals of Origin and the vocals
of Vale of Pnath is that Vale of Pnath does a lot more screaming. Most of the
time, the screams are played along with the growls, but every single song on
this record has plenty of material that has just screaming without any other
vocal accompaniment. Are the screams any good? They’re not really what I would
consider my favorite, but they sure as fucking hell aren’t shitty screams. So
there isn’t really any problem in the vocal department.
The one trait that sets Vale of Pnath apart from the rest of
the tech death genre is that they’re melodic. The recent technical death scene
that seems to be putting WAY too much emphasis on brutality and technicality is
what Vale of Pnath are not being a part of; these fuckers want to give you
something different. And yes, these guys are by no means the first technical
death band to take a melodic approach on the genre (bands like Arsis, Neuraxis,
Atheist, and The Black Dahlia Murder have all been doing it for at least ten
years), but they should be considered to be one of the best and most original
at it. Playing tech death in a melodic form is not an easy task to jump on,
that much I do know. This alone makes it even MORE difficult to be as original
as possible. Vale of Pnath take numerous traits from the generic zone and the
really underground scene and use them to compose their own unique and original
sound. I cannot stress enough how good these guys are at what they do; this is
a band that WILL go places.
Vale of Pnath have released one of the best technical death
debuts since Oracles by Fleshgod Apocalypse. The Prodigal Empire is an album
that I would recommend to technical death enthusiasts (and fans), asshole
elitists that think all new death metal is crap, extreme metal fans, and people
that love quality music. Having an approach that is both interesting and
original, Vale of Pnath has released an album that gets my score of 18/20. This
is not an album that you should listen to with low expectations, because they
will be completely obliterated.