Vektor- Black Future (progressive/thrash metal)

Recently discovered this thrash metal/progressive band Arizona. They put out an album called Black Future that sounds absolutely devastating. Highly reccomended to any fan of metal on this board.
 
http://www.myspace.com/vektor
 

MORE!  That rules.  Having just discovered Evile as well, I'm totally reliving my early-to-mid-90s thrash explosion!

by the way, is your avatar an image from vCrib? 

Nope. But the VCrib logo is the same design. As a fan of 2001, I decided to get a HAL avatar so I just looked for one on the web.

Gotcha - that's pretty funny; it looks almost identical.  Anyway, love 2001, that's a great avatar -

I typically don't like a lot of modern thrash metal bands that I hear, but this is quite good.

Figured I'd bump this thread, because Vektor's drummer is also an occasional poster to this forum.

...and because Black Future is a fucking amazing album which deserves lots of praise. Here's an analysis I posted to another thread:

I'll admit the Voivod-derived logo along piqued my interest. I'm a HUGE Voivod fan.

I definitely hear a Voivod influence too, but I'm glad to say there are some other strong and appreciated influences. I hear Watchtower, Cynic, Sadus, Atheist, and also some of the obligatory raw Germano-thrash and and crossover influences like Sodom, Cryptic Slaughter, and Living Death.

This is an interesting hybrid of technical thrash, technical death metal, and the more rhythmically punk sides of thrash. That's a combination where the individual elements should clash, but your band's compositions mold this apparent schizophrenia into a hydra, rather than a Frankenstein's monster.

I love the obtuse guitar harmonies and unpredictable time changes, which get thrown in with some very nasty vocals. It's all kept grounded by some excellently catchy and basic riffs and melodies. You've got obvious musical talent on display here, along with a pretty strong degree of difference from what I typically hear in retro thrash or technical death metal bands.

It's coherent, it's intelligent, and it accomplishes a thematic vision. Bully for you.

I saw this in the store the other day and knew it looked familiar... I should have picked it up!

Excellent release, one of the best of 2009. This is REAL thrash metal, not the contrived retro-thrash garbage a lot of bands are spitting out these days.

I like stuff like Merciless Death, Hexen, Evile, Skeletonwitch, Municipal Waste, Sauron, Wastelander, Gamma Bomb, Witchery, and Dew-Scented pretty well, but seriously... these guys put practically every other new thrash band to shame. They're actually pushing boundaries and achieving greatness here. I think Vektor are currently on a short list of bands who are moving the undead corpse of thrash in an interesting direction.

Everyone here knows Nevermore.

I'll throw my balls on the table and say these are the other two. :P

http://www.myspace.com/lairoftheminotaur
http://www.myspace.com/atakkehatesyou

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the praise guys, it means a lot from a forum of well-versed music types such as yourselves.  Actually our second US tour starts tomorrow, so we may be coming near you!  Definitely come check us out, we're doing this pretty DIY so we need all the people at the shows we can get.  http://myspace.com/vektor has the dates list.
Come say hey to me before/after, mention the forum and I'll buy you a drink.   Well, probably not.  But it would still be cool.

-Blake / Vektor

It's not just us. I've seen glowing praise for this album at a number of other metal forums, and at rateyourmusic, and at a few other websites. You guys are on the road to becoming "underground heroes."

Which means you get free beer while crashing on other people's couches and playing for mostly empty rooms with two or three neck beards plus the opening bands.

Was gonna start my own thread until I found this one beat me to it.  Just got Black Future fairly recently and have been listening to it nonstop.  What a kickass album from start to finish!  Every track just rips and they all are quite diverse from each other which is a huge compliment, especially considering the type of music these guys play.  Haven't been this floored by a thrash band in a long, long time; hope to see many albums from them down the road...

I quite like this band . They sound like Albator on acid .

I just posted an update about the future of Vektor the other day if anyone is interested.
 
-Blake/Vektor
 
BEGIN TRANSMISSION:
 

Earthlings,

We wanted to give an update for everyone on what's been going on in Vektor world since tour ended and what the future holds...

First off, our 6-week trek around the US in June/July/Aug. was a god damn blast.  Thanks for everyone who came out to the shows and supported us, helped us with booking, or gave us a floor to crash on.  We appreciate it immensely.  Made a lot of new friends, heard some great bands and spread the Vektor disease as far as we could.  If we still haven't hit your area on this tour or the previous winter tour, we are definitely trying to for the future (San Francisco, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, etc).

The vinyl release of Black Future is finally out, and we apologize for the delay.  It was released 9/14 in 3 versions (all of them are 2LP, full artwork gatefold):

- Black vinyl (300 copies)
- Blue/Purple Splatter vinyl with cover artwork slipmat, hand-numbered (100 copies)
- Green vinyl with logo slipmat, hand-numbered (100 copies)

They are going rather quickly and will NOT be repressed any time in the near future, so get over to Heavy Artillery's webstore ( http://store.heavyartillery.us ) to grab one of those before they are gone!  Heavy Artillery helped us put together some really, really cool packages for these and they are really awesome collector's items that look and sound fucking rad.  Best to buy now, so you don't have to pay out the ass on eBay in 10 years.

Since the tour ended we've been laying pretty low show-wise, but there are a few coming -- first off we're gonna be playing both Thrashoween shows in California in October.  The 22nd is in Escondido at Metaphor Cafe, and the 23rd is in Riverside at the Common Ground.  The day after all of that madness, our friends and label-mates Vindicator will be in AZ rocking out with us at Chaser's in Scottsdale.  November 20 we'll be in Vegas for the first time ever, with Warbringer, Hexen, and more at Cheyenne Saloon, so come rock out for that one as well!

Other than that our main focus right now is writing for the next album (while two of us finally get school out of the way in December).  We're working hard with new material and a lot of it is coming out awesome so far.  Once it gets tightened up, tweaked, and finalized, our aim is to get in the studio some time in the winter.  Probably early 2011, putting the album out around March or April.  Don't hold us to that, it's just an estimate.  Might be earlier, might be later.

After that we head to Europe for Keep it True and a few weeks of shows out there (TBD), then probably some VERY extensive touring after that.  Once school is out of the way we're going to go pretty all out as far as touring goes, and we hope to take it as far as we can.  We do need all the help and support we can get from YOU though.
So since we are sort of in writing/rehearsing mode, don't expect a lot of major updates until November or December.  But keep in touch!  We can't wait for everyone to hear the new material and to see everyone out on tour again.

Until then,
Vektor


Read more:http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=3655318&blogId=539323750#ixzz11QwxYwZH

Ordered the blue/purple splatter vinyl of Black Future the other day, hope it gets here soon!  Also, new album in March/April? Count me in!

bump.
 
they have a new album coming out in November titled "Outer Isolation" and they just shared 2 new songs. Pretty tight.
 
http://heavyartillery.bandcamp.com/album/outer-isolation

Vektor is SO fucking good. Black Future is my favourite recent Thrash release.

These new tracks just rip!  This album cannot come out soon enough.  I NEED MORE VEKTOR!!!!!

Was just gonna come post these, haha... glad you dig them!  We feel like we've got a pretty solid album on our hands here and those two tracks really only scratch the surface.  Can't wait to get back on the road and hammer these out for everyone live.

Love the two songs, thanks for sharing them 

bump.
Outer Isolation can be streamed
http://www.heavyartillery.us/HA55026/
 
it's pretty badass.

This is so awesome, I've been waiting for some UNIQUE and ORIGINAL thrash for what seems like forever!  Along with the new Revocation album, this is exactly what the doctor ordered!

This album is melting my face right now. These guys are amazing and easily in my top 4 or 5 favorites of newer thrash bands. I want to buy this ASAP along with their debut album. Question though? Why does this web site say street date of 11/22/11, but Amazon.com says not available until 12/6/11? I NEED this album NOW!

Bump. So anyone know what Amazon's deal is? I'd go to FYE to buy on release date but I don't know that they will carry it or not.

Progmetalman


Bump. So anyone know what Amazon's deal is? I'd go to FYE to buy on release date but I don't know that they will carry it or not.

Apparently Sony bumped our release by a few weeks, we still haven't heard exactly how or why from our record label.  But the digital distributors started making it available today.

Those of you who seem to be liking it so far, thanks very much!  We're proud of it and it's great to finally get it out into the world (kind of).  Would love MP to come across it, still my all time favorite drummer.

I will be buying this when I wake up today (Just heading to bed now)

Slaryn, You fucking kickass man. Both Black Future and Outer Isolation are amazing albums. Outer Isolation will be in my top 20 for sure.
 
Any word on a 2012 tour at all? I'd love to see you guys in Minnesota next year.

Damn. I may end up caving and having to buy a digital copy now, and a physical copy in a few weeks when it's officially released. I got hooked after hearing your web site stream. I have a question for you Slaryn as a member of the band... I've heard you guys actually have three albums out, but I can't find the first one anywhere... Demolition I believe it's called? Is it really an album, or more of a demo? Would you say it's worth my time tracking down?

Listening for the first time now (have work in a few minutes... damn it!!), and sounds very good! I loved Black Future, so I have high expectations for this one! So far, sounds just as awesome as I'd envisioned. Great job Slaryn and Co.!

This album is insane, exactly what I hoped for as a follow up to the fantastic Black Future.  Keep up the great work, you guys blow every other current thrash band out of the water!  Really hope to catch one of your shows sometime in the near future.  Come to MN pretty please!  

JRundquist, thanks a lot man! Working on 2012 tour plans, though they may be a bit lighter than we wanted already because we're all working full time, one member getting married, we're moving across the country, etc. so money is pretty much nonexistent right now.  We'll see what happens though. Have yet to play MN on past tours, hopefully it will happen on the next one!

Progmetalman, sorry about the release delay... we still don't fully know what happened, our label seems to have really dropped the ball on this entire release. Feel free to pirate it and buy it later if you don't want to double purchase, haha!  As for Demolition, in the band's opinion it isn't worth seeking out really.  If you've heard Black Future and Outer Isolation you've actually heard all of it already with a better lineup and production/some revisions and improvements (except one song Moonbase, which isn't quite as good as the others anyways).  We basically hate Demolition (bad recording, painfully slow, sloppy performance, etc.) but the songs we do like, so we made the "definitive" versions of them split between BF and OI.  Now we're done with them.  Next album won't have any more old stuff, and will probably be a concept album.

I'll be sure and revive this thread with tour dates once we have some!  Hope to meet some of you on the road, come say hey! 

Slaryn


Progmetalman, sorry about the release delay... we still don't fully know what happened, our label seems to have really dropped the ball on this entire release. Feel free to pirate it and buy it later if you don't want to double purchase, haha!  As for Demolition, in the band's opinion it isn't worth seeking out really.  If you've heard Black Future and Outer Isolation you've actually heard all of it already with a better lineup and production/some revisions and improvements (except one song Moonbase, which isn't quite as good as the others anyways).  We basically hate Demolition (bad recording, painfully slow, sloppy performance, etc.) but the songs we do like, so we made the "definitive" versions of them split between BF and OI.  Now we're done with them.  Next album won't have any more old stuff, and will probably be a concept album.

I'll be sure and revive this thread with tour dates once we have some!  Hope to meet some of you on the road, come say hey! 

 
Thanks for taking the time to answer my question about Demolition. Sounds like I won't need to track it down since Black Future and Outer Isolation contain most of the material. As for the album release, Not your guys' fault the label fucked up. It's all good man, I can be patient and wait. No need for piracy. There's still the stream to listen to as well. Look forward to hopefully catching you guys on tour.

Sucks to be a fan and live in Minnesota, but damn it must be nice if you're hailing from spots like Warren, Michigan Lincoln, Nebraska and Idaho Falls, Idaho, LOL. So typical, but then again, if they played MN it would likely be at Station 4, which does not have Air Conditioning course, thus , a Sauna.
 
 

angra1, I have it on good authority we'll hit MN in November on a different tour that's in the works.

Double date in Austin Sept 8th (2 shows on the same day)? How does that work? That's a hard effing working band there, by God!!! Plus, 2 days after my bday, so i've already snagged those dates off from work. Roadtrip!!!

Slaryn


angra1, I have it on good authority we'll hit MN in November on a different tour that's in the works.

well, that sounds like a good plan. And at least by November, the temperatures in Minnesota aren't so hot outside, that even inside Station 4 (where I'm thinking it'll likely be. Perhaps The Cabooze or 1st Ave if you guys end up on tour with a pretty big name like Trivium or something), it's bare-able.
 
Just as long as it's not on November 27th (of which I'm already pissing my gf off by seeing The Who do Quadrophenia instead of go with her to see her beloved Chris Isaak for the 2nd year in a row). To have a 2nd concert conflict that night would be an even bigger headache/missed-show-regret/unlikely-concert-jump.
 
I know, I at times have too full a plate for music

@Slaryn- THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I would love to see you guys in Minnesota in November.
 
If you guys are up for it I'd love to do a video interview with you guys for my radio show when that happens.

Haha, much earlier than the 27th, don't worry.

JRundquist we'd love to do that, there should be some time before/after the show if you're willing to hang a bit and be flexible. Would love to hang with a forumer as well! I'll shoot you a PM once we're closer to that time and we'll figure it out.

Not a problem man. When I go to shows I make sure to have all day and night free, especially when doing interviews. and I'd love to show you guys off.

I'm looking forward to it.