Polish death metal legends Vader have returned with their 16th studio album, Solitude in Madness. Never one to rest or relax, Vader have done it all over the course of their 37-year history. From plying super-aggressive thrash under the watchful eye of Communist Poland and signing a worldwide deal with popular UK indie Earache Records to touring the globe—after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, of course—and enjoying a near-maniacal fanbase, there’s no stopping the Piotr “Peter” Wiwczarek-led outfit. Proof of that lies in the exceptionally great Solitude in Madness, where speed and power are back as the driving factors in Vader’s fiendish yet proficient death metal. Further evidence can be found in the differences that separate previous pounder The Empire from Solitude in Madness.

With the band dynamic stable—Marek “Spider” Pająk (guitars), Tomasz “Hal” Halicki (bass), and James Stewart (drums) have been in Vader for almost a decade—the songwriting sessions were similar to Tibi et Igni (2014), The Empire (2016), and the tour-only Dark Age (2017). They were easy and smooth. Although things weren’t always like this in the Vader camp, the current lineup has afforded Wiwczarek a platform on which to focus Vader’s most important trait: the music.

Vader will kick off Solitude in Madness with a summer 2020 tour through Europe. There are also some events planned around the group’s various anniversaries—De Profundis turns 25, The Beast turns 16, and Necropolis turns 11—which will result in anniversary-branded tours. Nuclear Blast has plans to re-issue De Profundis, and there are further designs to press specific compact disc-only albums to vinyl. Expect to see Vader nearly everywhere—from Europe and North America and Asia—and indeed believe fans will be eating up Solitude in Madness en masse.