Review by: Simon Milburn - Metal Forge Webzine - 2008

West Oz lads shake it up and deliver the goods in fine form

Perth (Western Australia) quintet Vespers Descent made many a new fan with their debut long player, Visions In Verse, from 2005. The album and their live performances around the country furthered the profile in the ranks of the Australian metal scene without doubt. There have been some personnel changes since we last heard from the boys from the west with their current line-up consisting of vocalist Richard Clements, guitarists Grant Burns and Shannon Over, bassist Adam Fitzgerald and drummer Ben Mazzarol but it's very much melodic death metal business as usual with their new EP titled Reality Dysfunction.

After a brief assault of horror movie like sound effects, like something from The Grudge or the like, the tight sounding crisp production of Spectral Awakening signals the band's return to form. It's instantly noticeable that everything has been stepped up with the band showing off even tighter musicianship and song writing than before. This is further evident on the Carcass inspired blasts of the EP's title track, Reality Dysfunction, before it changes things up into the band's comfortable melodic death metal style which also features clean guitars at times to further add to the band's arsenal of musical change ups. Taking on a more straight forward approach is the mid tempo driven Deceiver which is a good helping of variety at this point in time.

It's a return to business as usual for the quintet with classic melo-death sounding Cryptic Visions and just as their previous effort included a blistering cover of Carcass' This Mortal Coil, the group once again unashamedly show off their influences with an equally brilliant cover of the At The Gates classic Blinded By Fear (from their 1995 effort Slaughter Of The Soul). From sheer brutality to sheer brilliance, the group wrap it up with the soothing acoustic strains of Eclypse which only reinforces the band's diversity, musicianship and song writing capabilities.

The wonders that Visions In Verse did for the group a couple of years ago are sure to continue with the excellence of Reality Dysfunction. This EP is clearly the next step up for Vespers Descent.

(Prime Cuts Music/M.G.M. Distribution)

Review source: Vespers Descent - Reality Dysfunction Review

Review by: James Young - Live 4 Metal Webzine

Melodic death metal seemed to be somewhat of a worn genre before the start of this year, but with two reunions of the original greats, At The Gates and Carcass, it has made a bit of a comeback, and once again been stripped down to its roots. Vespers Descent, from Australia of all places, seem to ride this wave, opting not to go for the American influenced modern thrash sound, but an old-school sound which harks back to the days of At The Gates and early In Flames. Both the production and musicianship are highly commendable for a band with only one album behind them, and the formula has been tweaked just enough to make for an interesting and fairly original listen. The screams of Richard Clements are nothing new to the genre, which is probably a good thing, but where the outfit really excels is in the writing and delivery of the 'Gothenburg' style hooks of Grant Burns and Shannon Over, which are present in full force from the get go in 'Spectral Awakening', as well as the solos that make you feel as fuzzy as the first time you heard Arch Enemy. Another positive is the band's ability to range from extremely vicious blast beat-laden passages to soft, almost acoustic passages. The title track displays such a good fusion, moving from Ben Mazzarol's intense drum attack to a soft passage, and incorporating some massive grooves into the mix for good measure. 'Deceiver' goes full circle, beginning and climaxing in almost tribal passages from Mazzarol, displaying the excellent song-writing abilities of the band, a rarity in a genre concerned mainly with writing good riffs with little regard for structure. Apart from the four main tracks on this EP, there is a well-executed cover of At The Gates' classic 'Blinded By Fear', balanced out by a mellow instrumental entitled 'Eclipse', so all in all there's quite a nice mixture of the heavy and soft on this release.

Australia is not known for its melodic death metal scene, which makes it even more surprising how excellent this EP is. Fans of In Flames, At The Gates and the likes will lap this one up, and even the embittered core of fans who think the genre has been sabotaged by outside influences will have their faith reaffirmed by this band.

Review source: Vespers Descent - Reality Dysfunction Review