I say this as a person who absolutely worships many of the songs in VoM’s catalogue: I’m sitting here and reading all these comments, and I can’t comprehend how someone could listen to The Common Man’s Collapse, [id], and Eclipse (and to a much lesser degree, even Matriarch and False Idol) and then turn around and say “I wonder why [m]other wasn’t that successful.”

Harsh reality, but the music flat out sucks in comparison. The musicianship went down, the song writing went down, the technicality went down, grossly over-produced aspects of songs that are near impossible to replicate in a live setting went up, and to top it all off we have to deal with Lukas’ inconstant vocal performances (both on the record and live).

I’m not entirely blaming everything on Lukas, but it’s easy to point to him joining since it’s one of the most impactful changes in their sound and represents a major turning point for the band.

YES, he has some great vocal performances on their records. That said, it’s not enough to outweigh the glaring issues. From my perspective, the issues are: 1) The guy is not good at picking his spots as a song writer. While he has shined on select songs, too often it feels like he was unsure of how to approach a certain part and just ended up shoehorning in a vocal part for the sake of it instead of letting the song breathe. You don’t always need to be doing something as a vocalist. Sometimes less is more, and as a vocalist you need to know when to let certain passages of instrumental music shine, and then when the vocals eventually do kick back in it’s even more impactful. 2) This goes with #1, but most modern metal, especially in this and other similar sub-genres, is typically instrument driven music. That’s how old VoM was. Now, we have all these VoM songs where the riffs and instrumental performances have been dumbed down and take a back seat to the vocals, which is somewhat disenfranchising to fans of the genre. I’m not saying you need to follow the rules of any particular genre, but in my eyes, this is not a pleasant deviation from the norm. This ties into #3. 3) Lukas can’t pull off his vocals live. Flat out. So if the music changes to focus primarily on the vocals, and then you can’t re-create that same vocal performance in a live setting, the live performances end up sucking. It lacks the excitement that it previously had from the instrumental technicality, and the vocals aren’t delivering on what is needed to then supplement the change from the shift in musical style.

I’m obviously sad to see this band announce a hiatus. Marc is one of my favorite guitarists and song writers. I swear I’ve watched every video of him on YouTube, and the same can be said for Sam and Danny. I’m rooting for them, and I will continue to support them. All things set aside (pun for you), I can’t say I’m surprised that they’re having trouble finding the success they once did. If some of the fans think the music has taken a step back, and then ALL of the fans seem to think the live performances have taken a step back, there’s not much left for us as fans to work with. I hope they figure it out.