[2] The album (on vinyl and, later, on CD) was credited under the abbreviated name Van der Graaf, like the previous year's The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome (1977), and featured the same line-up plus newcomer cellist/keyboardist Charles Dickie, who had officially joined the band in August 1977,[2] and original saxophonist and flautist David Jackson, who re-joined the band for this recording.

The absence of Hugh Banton, whose organ work was a hallmark of the group's sound before his departure in 1976, as well as frontman Peter Hammill's increased duties as a rhythm guitarist, account for much of this.

[2][3] After this, a two-night stint at the Marquee Club in London was scheduled for 15–16 January 1978, and David Jackson, who had left almost exactly one year before for financial, personal, and musical reasons, was invited to join Van der Graaf for these shows.

"Door" was another song from around this time, and a long unknown studio recording was featured both on The Box and the aforementioned reissue of The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome.

The newly reformed Van der Graaf returned to Urban for the spring tour 1977, now with the added section from "Killer", then dropped the track again for the rest of the year, before it came back to the set in 1978.

The entire album was only originally issued on CD in Japan (VJD-25023~24, 1989), and this had a booklet with incorrect lyrics (for instance "Sit down with the greats" on "Still Life" instead of the correct "Citadel reverberates").

Eder writes that "the group presents the raw, up-close, in-your-face approach that made Van Der Graaf Generator favorites of the punk bands despite the group's prog rock origins – between Hammill's loud, raspy vocals and his crunchy overamplified guitar, 'Still Life', 'Door', and 'Pioneers Over c' all sound almost like punk band performances."

A positive review appeared in Melody Maker that called VdGG "a band with enough enigma to keep Sherlock Holmes on the case for three volumes," and stated that "[Vital] indicates more fully than ever the inspired maelstrom of bitter vision and controlled desolate grandeur that Van der Graaf can create".

[8] John Gill, reviewing for Sounds said "Unashamedly betraying my partisan affections, 'Vital' really is," and that "[the album] captures the dark soul of VdG, laying past and present musical nightmares on to vinyl".

While Gray praised Vital's revamp of "Pioneers over c" as sounding "well-rehearsed and complete," favourably compared Nic Potter's bass sound to Jannick Top of Magma, and approved of some of the violin and cello work, he was critical of "torturous renditions of two of Hammill's best songs" ("Still Life", "Last Frame"), claimed the deliberately omitted lyrics in the medley of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and "Sleepwalkers" "rendered [them] ineffective", and responded to the "Nadir's Big Chance" lyric "jerks in leather bondage suits" by writing "what Hammill doesn't realize is that there's more bondage in his songs than there will ever be down the Kings Road.