This year marks ten years to the death of one of the greatest Metal musicians that ever walked the earth, Chuck Schuldiner. The founder of MANTAS, later on the famous DEATH, had written some of the best compositions of harsh Metal music that brought old school Heavy, Thrash and Progressive Metal to the same table to create a unique kind of Death Metal. That was an act of a genius. Throughout his career and after his Death, there were countless of the bands that were influenced or tried to mimic this legacy. Well, maybe mimic is a troublesome word but I heard several copycats.

After this intro I will present you the young talented group AFTER OBLIVION. These guys revere Death Metal, worship the sound of melodic pattern but also they are fans of Schuldiner's music. Well, I can understand them completely; it is hard not to like what this guy did. Through their latest EP, "Vultures", I could see their obvious direction as they played a similar form of intelligent Death / Thrash Metal in the vein of later DEATH works. However, I must imply that AFTER OBLIVION sounded a bit more melodic, following an oriental guide, and less technical in their playing though at first it would sound like it.

What I like most in this EP is the energies of these guys. Their music is well written, the songs are flowing, diverse and interesting. Several of times they reminded me of VEKTOR, especially when it came to the vocals of Adnan. The lead section, probably by Jasenko, was great as it generated some fine solos and cool melodic features. Marko, at the drums, really killed me; he really slammed hard and did an excellent performance. I liked the opener "Septic Mind" than the other two but on the other hand, both other tracks have their own advantages. Furthermore, I believe that this EP can't really shape an image of the band in my mind; I need to hear more stuff from them. I hope that the full length debut won't take long because from what I listened to here, this group is on the right track not as copycats but as something better.