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+)