Terminal Redux [LP]

The first concept album from the heady, Philly-based thrashers, and their first for new label Earache, Terminal Redux expands on the tech-heavy, progressive-minded prowess of 2011's Outer Isolation with an even more ambitious set of sci-fi neo-thrash transmissions. Built around a narrative concerning an astronaut coming to terms with an existential crisis that arises from his discovery of the key to immortality, the ten-track set delivers a near constant stream of virtuosic riffing and punishing beats, peppered with cosmic utterances both snarled and crooned. Throughout, Vektor's showy, neoclassical leanings never undermine the muscular, Kill 'Em All-era Metallica savagery that's made them leading lights in the post-Voivod thrash era, and Terminal Redux, for all its detours into knotty, prog-tastic futurism, delivers both brains and brawn with extreme prejudice. ~ James Christopher Monger