It’s hard to actively dislike Vulture, a group for whom heavy metal really is a design for life and how to live it. More precisely, Germanic speed metal of the early-to-mid-eighties is their eau de vie, and it’s gratifying to see that several members of the band sport dodgy moustaches in tribute to that faraway age in the promo photo that accompanies the review copy of the album. If you’re going to walk it, you gotta talk it, and these blokes appear to be very vocal indeed…

It’s unfortunate, then, that their music doesn’t quite speak so volubly. There’s nothing wrong with it, you understand – A. Axetinctör‘s bouncing, bubbly bass work is a particular joy throughout – it’s just that all the best moments here were used by somebody else forty years ago. That’s not particularly problematic when you’re in a Munich Moshpit bellowing along to Draw Your Blades, I know, but in the comparatively sterile surrounds of the Sentinel Daily office this absolute lack of originality does become something of a sticking point.

Anyways, the band think this is the best of their four longform efforts to date, and I’m certainly not going to be drawn into an argument with them over this particular point. Hackneyed material notwithstanding, the band sound focused and on point throughout, playing wise, and in Where There’s A Whip (There Is A Way) they’ve come up with an exciting slice of early Zetro-era Exodus worship that is genuinely exciting to listen to, with L. Steeler‘s demented vocals and the thrilling guitars of S. Castevet and M. Outlaw causing some serious finger twitching and neck flexing.

Throw in some titanic tom-tom abuse from drummer G.Deceiver and you’ve clearly got a band that has mastered the art of speed metal; on the closing, titular effort Sentinels they show they also know a thing or two about strident power metal; Now, if they could just work in a bit of their own personality, I think they might be on to something pretty exciting…

Sentinels releases on April 12th.