«Litany» is Vader’s fourth album, released on 20 March 2000 by Metal Blade Records. The Polish band recorded it at Red Studio in November 1999, with Piotr Wiwczarek and Adam Toczko producing. It is the album that brought Vader even closer to the American audience.
“`Country: Poland
Style: Death Metal
For fans of: Morbid Angel, Deicide, Behemoth
The sound is fast, precise and heavy death metal. Krzysztof Raczkowski’s drums pound without pause, the guitars of Piotr Wiwczarek and Maurycy Stefanowicz cut like blades, Leszek Rakowski’s bass adds weight, and Wiwczarek’s vocals sound like they crawled out of the bowels of the earth.
«Wings» opens the album with one of the band’s strongest starts, and «Xeper» stands out too, along with «Cold Demons» — which got its own video — «North» and «The World Made Flesh». Every track is short and hits straight away.
«Litany» matters because Vader managed to combine the rawness of their early records with better production, without ever softening. The album hit number one in Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza sales chart, proving that extreme metal now had an audience in their own country too.
A video was shot for «Cold Demons», and the album was nominated for a Fryderyk award in the hard and heavy album of the year category in Poland. Vader had already built their reputation with their first albums, and here they added production that makes every hit come through clearly.
With «Litany» Vader cemented their place among the big names of European death metal and played stages all over the world. More on the album’s Wikipedia page.
See also
See also: Death – The Sound of Perseverance and Morbid Angel – Covenant.
