In most cases, when a band wants to celebrate their long-running (and sometimes even short-running) career, they'll simply put together a general compilation of their greatest hits and maybe throw in some bonus material for added incentive. That said, it's not often that you see a band actually take the time to put on their thinking caps and come up with something more unique. This is one of those rare occasions. Polish Death Metal masters VADER could have just slapped together a collection for quick release and be done with it, but instead they've gone the extra mile by digging up some of their best work and then re-recording every single track, one at a time. That's certainly not an easy task, but in this case VADER have done an excellent job.

"XXV" commemorates VADER's 25th anniversary - that's 25 years as a band playing some of the most brutalized Death Metal you'll ever hear anywhere. This two-disc "best of" contains 29 tracks taken from various albums throughout the band's career, all re-recorded during the first half of 2008 for this exclusive release, put out by Regain Records. Although there is no new material here per se, what VADER have done is refined these classic tracks and polished them up a bit in an effort to make them sound better (or more enhanced) than the originals.

Tracks like "Crucified Ones", "Dark Age", "Reign Forever World", "Sothis", "Reborn In Flames" and the classic "Black To The Blind" are among the most impressive reincarnations. In addition to the re-recorded tracks, there are some other tasty treats included, such as the epic-sounding intro, titled "Invaders", which serves as a great introduction to the ensuing carnage, and the band also perform a cover version of TERRORIZER's "Fear Of Napalm" (which the band dedicate to late drummer Jesse Pintado).

Obviously VADER is a veteran Death Metal band and have the skill, motivation and most importantly, experience to execute the arduous task of re-recording older material. One could argue that the band could have expended the energy and effort creating a new album instead, but the fact of the matter is when remakes sound this good, what is there to complain about? "XXV" provides the opportunity to listen to new versions of older material by the band, and there really are not a lot of weak spots except for maybe the addition of keyboards in some of the songs. Perhaps now that VADER have proven that they were able to deliver with this re-recorded music, they can now move on to focus on a new album. But until then, "XXV" has more than enough signature VADER-styled brutality to have you salivating at the mouth.