Vulture: Dealin’ Death (2021, Metal Blade Records)

German speed/thrash metal act Vulture were formed in the not-so-distant 2015 to delight us a couple of years later with their debut album, The Guillotine, a notable release that came after the demo Victim To The Blade released in 2016. Their musical proposal, rough and vivid at the same time, transported us to a somewhat distant time: the not so wonderful eighties. With great technique under their belt and the use of new technologies, the Dortmund-based quintet gave us one of the most solid works of that year thanks to such huge cuts as Triumph of the Guillotine or Clashing Iron, without forgetting Vendetta, first preview which would serve as a cover letter for the album in 2017

They went somewhat unnoticed despite having Enforcer‘s alma mater Olof Wikstrand as a special guest on Adrian’s Cradle. However, they managed well to have an artist of the stature of Velio Josto designing their debut album’s artwork, designer and cover artist for a large part of underground releases of the last decade, among which artists such as Medieval Steel, Riot V or Toledo Steel stand out.

Already in 2019 they released their second studio album, Ghastly Waves & Battered Graves, a much more mature and worked album in which they once again demonstrate that they have studied their sound well and that they know the material they want to deliver to their followers. Songs like Tyrantula, Murderous Militia or Thin Lizzy‘s brutal version of Killer On The Loose make Ghastly Waves & Battered Graves another of the great releases of that same year and at the same time do nothing more than justify the need to have a band like Vulture nowadays.

And that brings us to the present, when an album like Dealin’ Death knocks on the door to kick our asses again. The quintet, formed by A. Axetinctör on bass, M. Outlaw and S. Castevet on guitars, G. Deceiver on drums and L. Steeler on vocals, emerges from the bowels of hell to shake us again with a real dose of speed/thrash thanks to cuts as authentic as Malicious Souls, a song that opens one of the juiciest releases of 2021 after a delicious instrumental introduction like Danger is Imminent, whose title could even seem like a clear reference to Exodus.

What’s more, Vulture does not hide its influences at any time, and knows how to present a mix of sounds that range from the anger of the New Yorkers Demolition Hammer to the darkness of the Californians Death Angel, incorporating sounds from bands such as the aforementioned Exodus and even with a certain hint of Vicious Rumors in cuts like Gorgon or Flee the Phantom. In fact, the cover -designed by by Josto as well- perfectly captures the sound that the band wants to convey in Dealin’ Death and is capable of multiplying the sensation of massacre that the German quintet is capable of transferring to the listener with its music.

From the eponymous song to the brutal Count your Blessings, through the enraged Below the Mausoleum or the sepulchral The Court of Caligula that closes the album, the band is able to maintain an excellent level throughout this third full-length without reaching hate the listener, in the almost three-quarters of an hour that the album lasts. That is a true feat in these times, where albums of such length reach twelve and even thirteen songs, transmitting that sensation of having traced each of the songs without filters.