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Terrorizer Review (UK)

Sometimes isolation gives artists a great creative boost, and so it is with Israel's Vultures. Although one might think the fraught political situation might be conductive to extreme music, until now only Israel's small but productive metal scene has shown much interest in musical brutality.

Vultures provide the obscure missing link between Israeli extreme metal and the country's highly active electronic music scene. 'Great Discoveries...' is a coruscating collision between jagged-edged metal riffs and pulverising beats and bleeps. Veering from Pitchshifter style industrial grooves through Alec Empire craziness to Electronic Body Music, the band rarely stands still.

The best track here 'Vulture's Splendour' has an almost soulful quality reminiscent of early 90's Front Line Assembly. This is a promising release from a promising band, the only downside being the number of remixes on this album, interesting though they are, do kind of detract from the band's sound somewhat. (8/10)

Side-line Review (Belgium)

Hailing from Israel, Vultures saw the daylight in 1999. After having released a debut EP and a split CD, this can be seen as their 1st full length. The opening songs "Easy does it" and "Internal plea" (remixed by PTYL) sound in the purest hard cyber-punk style. This is pure aggression, built up with totally uncontrolled guitar riffs and an electronic bombardment while the screaming way of singing sounds full of rage!

The "Vultures splendour" song, which I presume must be an extract of the EP and which has been remixed by PTYL as well, is another hard hitting exploding.

The rhythm, which remains pure speed, reminds me now and than to Cubanate. The live version of "Snow" is the last song of the album and a last cut in this anarchistic style. Vultures still present us different sides, which are totally different and better in my opinion! So there's another hard approach with the breakbeat like "Live a message". The song has been remixed by 21st Century Jesus and sounds like a wink to Prodigy. I personally prefer the industrial minded mood of "Horrible weather". There is also a remix by K-Nitrate of the same song.

Gothtronic Review (Holland)

From the country, which brought us Jaffa oranges and Merkava main battle tanks, here's Vulture. This Israelian band earlier released a self-titled EP, now this remarkable first album has been released. Main ingredients for this musical meal are industrial metal and digital hardcore, tasty indeed. 

But it doesn't stop there. Quite unusual for a debut, six of the ten tracks on this record are actually remixes by PTYL, K-Nitrate, 21st Century Jesus, PTSMC and Such. When combining all these factors into a whole, the result is a raw and eclectic sound, which can be considered to be a contemporary definition of cyberpunk. All this reminds me of acts such as Alec Empire and Uranium 235 but also Asche. This makes Great Discoveries & Plasma Ticks a musically diverse product. Agitated vocals and grinding guitars supported by industrial beats and throbbing electronics but also doom laden electro techno, this and more can be found on this disc. 

For this record the remixers have been at least as important for the sound as the regular band members. This LP sounds variable yet somewhat incalculable, nevertheless some subtleties can be detected. It looks to me like the musical principles of this piece of work may serve Vultures well as a firm foundation on which to base future titles of their discography.

Velvet Magazine Review (Translated from the original French)

This first album by the Vultures - which it not totally is as it contains 6 remixes - is a new public warning addressed at the industrial scene, following the self produced 2002 EP. It has to be said that the group, which originates from Israel follows in the still fresh footsteps of Atari Teenage Riot. The sounds of Cubanate and Pitchshifter are other reference points. In other words, hard hitting.

It should not surprise anyone then that the two guitar players also play in a death metal band called Lehovoth. Programming is done by Oz_Vult and by the omnipresent Maor Appelbaum, who is at ease both in the digital hardcore of the vultures as in gothic wave (sleepless) or even dark ambient/electro experimental (vectorscope/screening). That leaves Rani Zager, whose vocals prove to be ideal for this kind of exercise. To be followed closely of course. (7/10)

ChainDLK Review (Italy)

Vultures are back with their mixture of industrial metal/electro anger but too bad this isn't their full-length album. Even if the CD contains ten songs, only three are new studio tracks. The other seven are remixed versions of songs coming from their first MCD ("Internal plea" and "Vulture's splendour"), remixes of new tracks ("Horrible weather" and "Live a message"), remixes of unreleased tracks ("Systematic") and a live track ("Snow"). First of all I have to admit that the new tracks ("Easy does it", "Live a message" and "Horrible weather") rock! 

Their mixture of power and melody will make the NIN fans question if the Vultures will become their next favourite band. The remixed tracks (treated by PTYL, K-Nitrate, 21st Century Jesus, PTSMC and Such) are good (K-nitrate version of "Horrible weather" differs totally from the original one and he makes out of it a really nice dance/ambient/ebm) but sometimes (specially for the unreleased tracks) you feel that something is missing: you never heard the original track and a blend of distorted samples, like in the case of "Systematic", isn't enough. This CD is a good follow up to "Vultures EP" but I wish they would release their real first album sometimes soon.

Barcode Review (UK)

Great Discoveries & Plasma Ticks' is a rather old-style, aggressive industrial music album that sits unquietly next to the likes of Die Krupps and perhaps some of the more traditional metal bands, In terms of power and destructivity, Vultures pull no punches, and kick off with a blistering assault of the senses on ‘Easy Does It'. The raw production and edgy guitars occasionally make way for bursts of sporadic synth programming, whilst Rani Zager pulls few punches in his vocal delivery. 

However, the album deviates considerably in production values, which is mainly due to the fact that many of the tracks are remixed. Where K-Nitrate fail miserably on the mostly electronic inspired mix of ‘Horrible Weather', 21st Century Jesus profit on the blistering ‘Live A Message', by far the most inventive and interesting track on the album. But, there are few standout tracks, although the quality of song writing is reasonably consistent throughout.

In their better moments, Vultures provide listenable Industrial music with a furious, danceable energy that has a contemporary edge to it, at their worst it's the complete opposite; derivative industrial by numbers. Witness the two closing tracks, ‘Live A Message (Repeatability Mix by Such)' and ‘Snow (Live)', which both sound painfully outdated. Industrial-heads are bound to embrace it nevertheless.

Hard Wired Review (UK)

From what I can hear, the music does not follow any set pattern. It's almost as if it is set to a random order stitched together by memories of how other bands have approached this style of music. In saying that, I can quite safely say that this band reminds me of nothing I have heard before, and I cannot liken them to anyone else. A refreshing change I must say!

The opening track, ‘Easy does it', is nothing but easy - it's like letting a rabid Doberman out of its cage! This fuses seamlessly to the second track, ‘Internal Plea', which is a fusion of metallic guitars, and sequenced drum machines slightly akin to Ministry (‘The Mind Is a Terrible Thing' ... days). 

As if that wasn't enough, the following track, ‘Live a message' sounds like the drummer has gone mad at a scrap yard - pounding metallic drumming is the foundation for this track, until the distorted vocals take over. If there's one thing that can be said for this album, it's a sweetshop of candy for the ear. You'll not get bored of listening to this if outright Industrial aggression is your thing.

But hang on, out of the ten tracks on offer here, not all are unique - two are mixes of ‘Live a message' (one by 21st Century Jesus), and there's an additional mix of ‘Horrible Weather' by K-Nitrate. (The original version of this track is a weird mix of film samples and electronic mayhem, while the mix adds K-Nitrates signature to the original, and gives some order to it, making it, in my mind at least, more listenable.) There are a wild variety of musical styles buried within this album. I get the visual impression of a concrete building with all sorts of musical styles and instruments going to make up its structure. Strange.

The final track on the album is ‘Snow' - apparently live, but you'd be hard pressed to tell that, as the final mix of it is easily of studio quality. In all a very good album. Maybe I'm getting old, but the outright aggression on here gets just a bit too much after a while, and you'll yearn for something slightly quieter. Now, where are my Ministry albums...? (3/4)

Rocksound Review (UK)

Chances are that life's not one long procession of fluffy bunnies and rainbows for the eight-legged aggro machine from Israel. A freakish combination of new tracks, remixes and a solitary live song, there is something here for everyone; the pounding industrial strength oppression of ‘Easy Does It' or the emphatic call to arms of ‘Live A Message', to the relentless driving beat of K-Nitrate's interpretation of ‘Horrible Weather' and the harder than Pitchshifter stylings of 21^st Century Jesus' ‘Voodoo Chicken Messenger' remix. What the studio tracks revel is a band who aren't as technically adept as such folk as Hanzel Und Gretyl or EC8OR, but it's unleashed with such a vengeful hunger that it's not difficult to be enthralled. It's probably the noise Trent Reznor would've cracked one off to about 10 years ago, and who can blame him?

Gilez Moorhouse (7/10) 

Neurozine Review (Sweden)

This is chaos. This is EBM. This is electric guitars and hardcore from the beginning to the end. This is brutal and it catches you and it feels right. Aggressive distorted shouting and machine sounds that are pounding in the background leave no time for rest. This is riot music for industrial kids with revolutionary thoughts and great need for fast and brutal music.

Songs like "Live A Message" and "Internal Plea" is so great and speaks so much for them that no words are necessary. This is something I will listen more too and I cannot wait to hear more from Vultures in the future.

John Wikström (9/10)