Vespers Descent - Reality Dysfunction   

West Oz lads shake it up and deliver the goods in fine form

Perth (Western Australia) quintet Vespers Descent made many a new fan with their debut long player, Visions In Verse, from 2005. The album and their live performances around the country furthered the profile in the ranks of the Australian metal scene without doubt. There have been some personnel changes since we last heard from the boys from the west with their current line-up consisting of vocalist Richard Clements, guitarists Grant Burns and Shannon Over, bassist Adam Fitzgerald and drummer Ben Mazzarol but it’s very much melodic death metal business as usual with their new EP titled Reality Dysfunction.

After a brief assault of horror movie like sound effects, like something from The Grudge or the like, the tight sounding crisp production of Spectral Awakening signals the band’s return to form. It’s instantly noticeable that everything has been stepped up with the band showing off even tighter musicianship and song writing than before. This is further evident on the Carcass inspired blasts of the EP’s title track, Reality Dysfunction, before it changes things up into the band’s comfortable melodic death metal style which also features clean guitars at times to further add to the band’s arsenal of musical change ups. Taking on a more straight forward approach is the mid tempo driven Deceiver which is a good helping of variety at this point in time.

It’s a return to business as usual for the quintet with classic melo-death sounding Cryptic Visions and just as their previous effort included a blistering cover of Carcass’ This Mortal Coil, the group once again unashamedly show off their influences with an equally brilliant cover of the At The Gates classic Blinded By Fear (from their 1995 effort Slaughter Of The Soul). From sheer brutality to sheer brilliance, the group wrap it up with the soothing acoustic strains of Eclypse which only reinforces the band’s diversity, musicianship and song writing capabilities.

The wonders that Visions In Verse did for the group a couple of years ago are sure to continue with the excellence of Reality Dysfunction. This EP is clearly the next step up for Vespers Descent.

(Prime Cuts Music/M.G.M. Distribution)

Added: June 13th 2008
Reviewer: Simon Milburn
Score:
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