Band:	Vektor
Album:	Black Future
Style:	Progressive thrash metal, Technical thrash metal
Release date:	November 2009

01. Black Future
02. Oblivion
03. Destroying The Cosmos
04. Forests Of Legend
05. Hunger For Violence
06. Deoxyribonucleic Acid
07. Asteroid
08. Dark Nebula
09. Accelerating Universe

This band rocked my world sometime in mid-February. I tried making some noise about their brilliant creation called Black Future but nothing less than a review will do justice to this thrash combo from Arizona. Vektor made an album that combines heaviness and melody in a new, fresh way. The dudes can shred (oh yes!), but it's not wankery. They can play beautiful acoustic passages and incorporate ambient breaks, and not for one second do they sound boring. They throw in prog and black, and their thrash is so natural and unpretentious, it's hard to believe. And the vocals? are? sick. David Disanto mixes classic black metal singing with some occasional unearthly high-pitched screams making his voice undeniably recognizable.

I wouldn't go ahead and call Black Future a progressive thrash album but this is definitely some original thrash. Not only there are tons of riffs and solos but the album possesses the epic feel about it - grandiose at times but not cheesy to any extent; something like Dissection. Speaking of which, there are ten seconds on the song "Dark Nebula" which sound almost like the main riff of Dissection's "Unhallowed." Anyway, this album is like an exciting journey on which you don't know where the next turn is going to take you. Nevertheless, there is no unnecessary hypercomplexity. Time signature-wise, it is pretty simple and to the point; you don't find any abrupt riff changes or anything like that but the contents make it stand out. Every instrument is played so well and with such degree of accuracy and technicality that this album is just a new benchmark in the world of thrash. The main thing though is that Vektor don't try to copy any thrash legends in an attempt to sound old school and actually it makes all the sense in the world if you consider how variegated their influences are. After all, the music on this album is just so much more than thrash.

From whatever side you look at this album, it is basically perfect and all elements fit. Production is clear enough to let us hear all the intricacies and much better than on the previous record Demolition which sounds more like a demo compared to Black Future. The guitars sound appropriately epic and "cosmic" sometimes crossing the black metal territory to envelop the tragic feel of the obscure sci-fi lyrical themes and the drums are not the last reason to overplay this album.

Don't wait, go out there and buy this masterpiece as this baby is filled with so much breathtaking material that it will keep you hooked for weeks, if not months!