### Vital Remains: Forever underground

#### 20/10/11 || Judge Edo

Mediocre bullshit at best. That was my first thought after vaguely focusing on Vital Remains 1997 effort “Forever underground”. Not only did everything seem to run together at first listen, becoming a bland metal soup largely devoid of interesting riffing and predictable drumming, but it also pissed me off that I assumed this was a good album worth purchasing. I saw things slightly differently upon repeated listens, but not much.

“Forever underground” is the titular track, starting off in what feels like Nile territory with a slow building riff. Double bass kicks in and the riffs have some groove to them and you feel like this is going to be pretty cool. A little blasting here, some breakdowns there and you’ve got a probably the strongest track on the album…oh that’s right there’s a two-fucking-minute outro to cap off the nearly 10 minute run time.

Following that brilliant decision there’s “Battle ground”. Bend over and prepare to taste you own ass, because it’s the most flavor you’re going to get for a while. This is becoming a long and repetitive exercise in repeating dull riffs to fill nearly 7 minutes. This song just sounds like a shittier version of the last one. I’ve heard other Vital Remains releases and know they can play the same card a lot, but the difference is they learned to throw in brilliant flashes of soaring riffs to differentiate tracks. Hence, people liked “Dechristianize”. This is not one of those tracks. At least “I am god” redeems itself a bit with some better riffing and an interesting acoustic solo by Dave Suzuki. Yes, Dave Suzuki can drum, and solo and I assume write the better riffs on Vital Remains’ albums, which is why he has no writing credit on the next track…

And here we are at the focus of the album- one that will stay with me and ultimately define it no matter how hard I try to wash it away in scalding hot water. Finishing the quasi-Pestilence rip off moments of “I am god” (You’ve got to try harder than that, Tony Lazaro) I was immediately broadsided- Wha…What the fuck is this? A fucking children’s keyboard demo? DOS music stolen from some 90’s computer game? This must be a joke, or a ripped cd… Nope …… SIX! You have SIX goddamn songs on this album , and you decide to shit out this pointless, embarrassing excuse for a track while keeping a straight face and putting a pentagram on your album cover! Satan fucking weeps that his name is attached to this bullshit. Tony Lazaro is going to have a pitchfork up his ass for eternity for this. He has created the most pointless, laughable minute and a half of sound I’ve ever experienced, did Osmose even fucking listen to this album before they sent it to print?

After the worst “song” I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting though (“Farewell to the messiah” ) the next track-“Eastern journey” sounds like the greatest, heaviest thing in the world-at the beginning at least. As this song repetitively trudges on you remember how you were wishing for something to break up the first half of the album. Perhaps some sort of steel to your skull might do the trick. Struggling to finish this track and the finale “Divine in fire” really lets the listener hear how uninteresting the band could be at this point.

Fucking Vital Remains…you can make great albums like “Dawn of the apocalypse” and “Dechristianize” but first you have to shit this out and pass it off as underground? No, this is fucking bullshit. If you cut this into an EP I might accept it, unless you chop off the better tracks and leave us with some of the most disappointed music I’ve heard in a while. If I had to choose between the piece of steel I cracked my head open with weeks ago, and this album…well, you can guess which one I’d choose. You heard it here children, having an M.R.I. is way more interesting than this.

- Information
- Released: 1997
- Label: Osmose Productions
- Website: Vital Remains MySpace
- Band
- Joseph Lewis: vocals, bass
- Tony Lazaro: rhythm guitar
- Dave Suzuki: lead guitar, drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Forever Underground
- 02. Battle Ground
- 03. I am God
- 04. Farewell to the Messiah
- 05. Eastern Journey
- 06. Divine in Fire