Vader's debut, 'The Ultimate Incantation' from 1993 is surely one of the finest entries in the death metal genre in the early 90's as well its arguably the bands finest creation though most probably prefer the sophomore release, 'De Profundis,' which is understandable since its pretty goddamn good too. It's interesting to point out immediately that six of the twelve songs previously appeared on the bands two demo tapes, 'Necrolust' & 'Morbid Reich' while the rest were wrote between the '91-'92 time frame.
Vader's style on this early outing is also quite different from what was more common at the time as most of the riffs and leads are played in a total thrashy Slayer-esque manner while the drums and vocals are more typical of death metal. The songs although covered with Doc's blasting drums for the majority of their duration the actual speed of the guitar playing isn't exactly light speed, in fact there are some slow moments even, which again point towards their thrash influences, but everything is well paced and flows quite nicely. The riffs I also find to be incredibly catchy, energetic and just full of character, which, at least for me results in some sort of headbanging motion, but that's just me. The solos are also short but entertaining and fortunately there really isn't anything that sounds like filler material or left overs and that's really saying something since the album runs for almost fifty minutes. Also you've got to admire the vocals since they are low and guttural but still quite understandable and I've always thought Peter delivered his best performance here.
Originally recorded at Sunlight Studio with Thomas Skogsberg, neither the band nor the label were satisfied with the results, therefore the whole thing was re-recorded at Rhythm Studios in England. Either way the album suffers greatly in the production area with the overall volume being quite low, the bass being non-existent and the guitar having an odd tone that I'm not quite sure if I like or not. Nevertheless there's just something about this first album that speaks to me a little bit more and just totally hits the spot when I need a good dosage of classic death metal. I guess I can't really explain that, but its just got so much energy behind it and the music is played with such heart and skill that its hard to resist.
In the end, 'The Ultimate Incantation' is overlooked a bit due to some of its shortcomings and as I already said most probably prefer, 'De Profundis' since these shortcomings were cured, but personally I'm of the opinion that both are stellar and well worth owning.
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