I was totally blown away when Icons Of Evil stopped spinning in my CD player! This album is an excellent example of satanic Death Metal that clearly brings to mind the groundbreaking works of DEATH and not to mention the cool artwork and the even cooler songtitles.
VITAL REMAINS have joined forces with the evil DEICIDE frontman Glen Benton with whom they put together the last two albums that are already considered as their best moments during their active years since 1992. On the 31st of July Metal Mind Productions released the first VITAL REMAINS DVD that captures the band's live performance at the 'Metalmania Festival 2007' in Katowice of Poland. Unfortunately, the live lineup was different than the studio and Benton did not follow the band on the road. His replacement was Damien Boyton who performed the vocals with the proper aggression while his on-stage presence was really relentless and that energetic that sometimes can be considered as too much. Dave Suzuki was in an excellent form and his leads underlined the fact that he is a high skilled guitarist. Generally, the band was in an excellent mood that night presenting a most compact live show. The use of several cameras takes you on-stage with the band or inside the center and pretty violent mosh-pit. Especially the 'spider' camera that is moving over the stage and audience gives an excellent panoramic view. The choice of recording a festival performance offered VITAL REMAINS a very good sound and light show but limited their set-list that comprises only 9 tracks, a number rather small for the band's debut live recorded DVD. Fortunately, the bonus material is pretty interesting and features apart from the classic stuff (biography, discography, photos etc) an inside interview with the band's founders Tony Lazaro and Dave Suzuki and a bootleg that was recorded also in Poland at the Mega Club the same year that contains six different tracks than the regular show. The limited edition will also contain a CD with the audio recording from the festival performance.
Considering the facts that the two live recordings come with a high picture and sound quality, the band perform their asses out and the bonus material is worth watching, it is more than safe to say that this DVD is really enticing for every Death Metal fan who respects himself. Closing this review, I have to say that in some strange way the metal community has underestimated VITAL REMAINS who are a very solid band with great potentials. So, get this one and ask yourself where is your god now?.