Vultures is the first release of the band on Metal Blade (contract signed in 2007) but they have been around since September 2003. Five years is not long to develop such skills and deliver a clean and extremely intense and complex death metal. And to be signed by Metal Blade gives us a clue anyway, don't you think? About Fate's music, I especially like the pure drumming with a lot of variety. Blast beats are not over-used. It's very interesting since a lot of bands in extreme metal just don't care about creativity with the druming parts and follow the scheme: intro (crash cymbals on the first beat of each bar), blast beat, break, blast beat.... With a minimum amount of fantasy around.

What I don't really see though is the part of a thrashy influence Fate is claiming. To me it really sounds new school but that's something fresh that they should be proud of I guess. I also really like this extreme side that the band managed to keep all along the CD. Unlike some other bands playing this style (I would quote Gojira), Fate never forgets that it's about death metal first. So it has to keep a constant aggressivity. I mean even with music full of asymmetry, you have to make a choice at some point: either you are playing Meshuggah-metal (which is not so easy since in my opinion only Meshuggah can play some good Meshuggah-metal) or some technical death metal. I don't think the scale of possibilities is much wider than that. And Fate took the decision. So it's really in your face with the very good vocals by Justin Krahn and that's just good like this! Until now, Fate has mainly been opening for bands like Unearth or Amon Amarth [both label mates] but there's no question that they will headline some great shows pretty soon.

written by Hubert Chapuis

Playing time: 30:12