My pick is Forever Underground, because, well, it's more memorable than Into Cold Darkness and I had a bad impression from the debut and hadn't listened to it in years

"Let Us Pray" closely followed by "Forever Underground" for me.

Honestly, they overhauled their style and lineup so many times from album to album from the beginning that I don't feel like it's fair to make too close of a comparison. Still, it launched Dave Suzuki and I'd like to believe that in an alternate timeline, he hung around and helped write a couple of fucking killer Deicide albums, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm gonna agree with both of you that it's these two, and put 'Forever Underground' first, then 'Let Us Pray'.

But, in all honesty, I've never owned the later Glen Benton stuff (heard it a bit tho) so maybe I'm not giving those a fair shake.

1. Forever Underground (Most ambitious and creative album out of them all)
2. Into Cold Darkness (My personal favorite of the three 90s VR albums, but it's not anywhere near as forward thinking as FU was, mostly being just a beefed up Let Us Pray with better riffing, a more chilling atmosphere, and more compact, aggressive songs)
3. Let Us Pray (Basic Florida-lite death metal with some nascent doom and black metal influences, but the songs are generally too long and lacking direction)

Into Cold Darkness. My favourite VR album period. It has a cold almost black metal feel and I love it.

Good to see no love for Dawn of the Apocalypse. That was the first Vital Remains CD I bought, load of obnoxious nonsense.

I think nobody mentioned it because it came out in 2000 and the OP was asking about 90s Vital Remains albums.

Let Us Pray is my favorite simply because it's so crushing and brutal, and pretty unique as a kind of fusion of Deicide and Obituary, but I also appreciate Into Cold Darkness because it's basically the only VR album to have concise, to-the-point songwriting, with most songs sitting in the 3-4 minute range instead of the longer compositions they're known for. And yes, it has a really cold, black metal-ish vibe which is pretty unique, I think. Forever Underground is good, but the guitar tone is really thin and weak, and robs a lot of punch from the songs, I think.




Yeah, that's probably my least favorite VR album. Lacks the catchiness and quality songwriting of their early material, and the epic atmosphere and melodicism of their Benton-era period. Even the spotty songwriting of Icons of Evil leaves more of an impression on me, that one at least had "Scorned".

Plus, is it just me or is Thorn one of the cringiest death metal frontmen ever? His whole vocal performance is so over the top and ridiculous, in particular that song where he goes "HE!!!! IS FUCKING!!!!! DEAD!!!!!" and then reading his ridiculous liner notes in that CD....what a fucking dork. Granted, I guess we should be glad they haven't recorded with Brian Werner yet because he's probably 10x worse...

I tried for a long time and could just never quite get into that one... it's so "all over the place". Granted there are some great moments

What's the deal with the Joseph Goebells alleged quote inside the booklet of Dawn of the Apocalypse?

Now you made me want to listen to it again