To be honest, the thing going through my mind after giving this album a few spins and collecting my thoughts was, "Is this album really a good place to start?". As a total newcomer to Vader I guess I was expecting raw blackened Thrash, but got something quite different.

The Beast is quite a modern-sounding piece of Black/Death Metal, with traditional style riffage presented with a clear tone and production - no brutal riffs lost in fuzz or buried by drums here, and no buzzsaw all-treble-no-bass guitar sound either. The lyrics are quite clear despite the vocals being delivered with a kind of deep retching sound, and I suppose it's quite refreshing to be able to actually hear words and see (hear?) that these songs have a point, are actually about something. We even end up with the odd catchy chorus, such as on Insomnia! In this sense, the album seems to borrow from current commercial bands, the kind that Kerrap! magazine features, without actually being commercial in itself. You even get your obligatory acoustic intro on the last song.

This still can't save the album in my mind though. The biggest failing is a simple yet very important one. None of these songs particularly sound out. The album as a whole manages to be quite unremarkable and, frankly, dull. This is why I expressed concern about starting off with this album - perhaps earlier Vader is rawer, faster, wickeder, and one would be able to appreciate this as an evolution of a band's sound. Or maybe it is just a truly unremarkable album. No riffs stand out, nor do any solos. The album manages to trundle by without making much impression. Which is quite a pity.

Standout Tracks:  Out of the Deep, Insomnia.

Overall Score:   6 /10