October 2025 Feature Release - The Pit

A new month means a new feature and this month it is my turn to choose for The Pit. I have gone with german speed / thrashers Vulture's 2024 album "Sentinels".

Let us know your thoughts in the thread below or even write a review.

https://metal.academy/releases/51480

I enjoyed my time with "Sentinels" last year but haven't returned to it since. I'd suggest that it's the best thing that Vulture have done since their debut though.

I wrote a review for this at the time of its release and I still maintain this view, so here we go:

I lived in ignorance of the existence of these german speedsters until getting an earful of their track "Realm of the Impaler" from this, their latest album, on the Guardians playlist for November 2024, where it leapt out at me from amongst the stuff I wasn't already familiar with. This wa the band's fourth full-length and it they already had quite an enthusiastic and loyal following, which I am sure this has only increased on the back of "Sentinels".

It is an album of infectious speed / thrash metal that leans heavily towards the speed side of that equation, with a strong link back to Maiden-esque heavy metal and early USPM. There is a lively enthusiasm about Vulture that suggests a particular love for the wider culture of metal worship, beyond the mere riffs and notes and deep into the core of the band's very being. This is definitely not thoughtful and contemplative metal, rather this is metal to be experienced and lived, each track a joyful and triumphant expression of metalhood. Hi-octane riffs, scorching solos and sing-along-at-the-top-of-your-voice choruses are the order of the day here. Vocalist Leo Steeler reminds me a fair bit of Exodus' Steven Souza with a raggedness to his normal vocals and a tendency to shift into a higher register at a moments notice. In fact early Exodus are a fitting comparison for the band as a whole, Sentinels ticking a lot of the same boxes as Bonded By Blood. The rhythm section of drummer Stefan Castevet and bassist Andreas "Irön Kommander" Axetinctör are really solid and maintain the propulsive momentum of the tracks with a tight and precise adhesion. Occasionally, especially during the solos during "Realm of the Impaler", the bass moves more to the fore and takes on a Steve Harris galloping quality, the twin guitar soloing not being the only touchstone with the Irons. The production is excellent, as is so often the case nowadays, and everybody gets to shine in their respective roles, due to top-knotch clarity.

You will be seriously struggling to find a more exhuberant celebration of metal than tracks like the aforementioned "Realm of the Impaler", "Death Row" or "Oathbreaker" and as a dyed-in-the-wool metalhead it is very difficult not to listen to Sentinels without a smile on my face and a yearning for a moshpit in my heart. An album like this reminds me very much how and why I got into metal in the first place in much simpler times, so very, very long ago.

4/5 (B+)

Here's my review:

I think it was possibly Knife’s debut album from 2021 which would mark the last time a speed/thrash metal record showed enough vigour and intensity to make me stop and take notice. For all the talk of regurgitation of old ideas, themes, styles and genres in modern metal, it is the likes of Vulture who give me the assurance that, if done well enough, the old-school can be worshipped and not come off as simple plagiarism. Whereas their fellow countrymen in Knife deploy a blackened edge to proceedings, Vulture are all about the shrieking, banshee wailing style of speed metal that you would associate with the likes of Razor or Exciter. Perhaps bordering on the power metal elements of Agent Steel also along the way, these Dortmund residents certainly know how to wear their influences on their sleeves.

Above all else, Sentinels is fun. It’s 80’s horror flick style album cover perhaps denotes a band with serious intent and I am not intimating for one minute that Vulture are a goofy band, more that they approach their art with a genuine enthusiasm, a passion that bleeds into their music. Leads soar over galloping riffs, vocals pierce the ears of anyone within a mile radius, yelled from lungs that swell with pride as they sing each lyric, and all the while the drums “thunk” along in the background. Never coming across as having much in the way of venom or bite, the drums are the most understated instrument on the record, to my ears at least. However, this is not necessarily a criticism as I think the production job does the sound real justice overall. Clean without being overproduced, the album has an atmosphere of a band playing live almost.

This is not my first venture into Vulture. I gave their 2019 album, Ghastly Waves & Battered Graves a four-star rating back in August of that same year, and I find Sentinels to be in the same ballpark of the ratings, albeit that I sense a step up in quality of musicianship, certainly in the leads department at least. I am not a massive fan of the hi-pitched vocals that are used here, although my tolerance of them during my listen through of this record was surprisingly good. It is the fiery riffs and blinding leads that reign supreme over the record for me though. The inclusion of an instrumental at track seven seems a bit of an odd choice if I am honest, and I struggle to fight the feeling that it is little more than filler, despite its best efforts.

Leave me with tracks such as the rampant ‘Death Row’ and I am much happier though. In fact, the section of the album that follows ‘Der Tod trägt schwarzes Leder’ is probably the stronger part for me. There certainly feels like an uptick in the quality for me over this backend of the record at least. Keep flying the flag for the old school fellas, it is appreciated.

3.5/5