Vortex
Imminence of Death
6.2
After the overwrought piano intro of “Lies And Illusions”, Canada’s Vortex lunge into a hard to categorize album of amorphous metal that lies somewhere between God Forbid, Hatebreed and Machine Head; It’s part modern thrash, part hardcore, part metalcore and ultimately undecided despite its moderately entertaining heaviness.
Still, Imminence of Death offers a few moments of JF-Dagenais produced (Kataklsym, Misery Index) tight, solid chunk mingled with some melodic moments but none of it really sticks after the album is over. There’s a considerable clash of bay Area Thrash and modern era thrash crunch, all glossed with Nicolas Tremblay’s generic hardcore scowl and a death metal based percussion section littered with some decent solos and harmonies, so the God Forbid comparison is certainly legitimate. However, the song writing itself never rises above energetic and powerful into more meaningful realms. The random injection of yet another dramatic piano piece “Does God Play Dice?” only serves to further enforce Vortex’s undecided nature.
Otherwise tracks like the lumbering “Chaos Will Bring a New World”, the urgent “Relativity”, the old school thrashings of “Warrior” and the newer, metalcore stylings of “Remords” do a good job of delivering stout, simplistic head banging metal with no long lasting effects. Vortex is the Chinese food of metal; tastes great and fills you up, but you’re hungry right away. With a name like Vortex and being Canadian, I expected…well, a Canadian Vortex instead of this rather faceless if enjoyably straight forward record. Vortex just never quite takes off or goes that extra bit to up the tempo or pace of the record. It just chugs along comfortably and predictably.
If you enjoyed label mates Torn Within, you might like this as it’s the same sort of fence sitting, non committal style just without a big name from another big Canadian band in it. I’m confused by Galy sometimes. On the one hand they release the incredible Beneath the Massacre and Augury then seem to try and throw out some random scene satisfying mediocrity like this, Eternal Eclipse or Camilla Rhodes. C'mon guys, Canada is teeming with brillaint musicians and bands, deliver the goods!
