DVNE to Release Voidkind April 19; “Plerõma” Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 12th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

dvne (Photo by Alan Swan)

DVNE‘s Bandcamp updated overnight (or at least I saw the email this morning) to account for the new release, and the PR wire made it official just a bit ago that Voidkind, the third LP from the Edinburgh-based progressive/post-metallers, will be out April 19 on Metal Blade. Am I crazy or does that seem like a time crunch? Singles are starting to roll out for records that aren’t coming until June, and April 19 is just five weeks away.

Maybe they’re in a hurry, and with the coinciding tour also coming up quickly, fair enough. Keeping good company as they go, DVNE will embark on their Spring tour of the UK and Europe on April 23, just on the other side of Voidkind‘s release weekend. So perhaps that’s where some of the urgency comes from, or maybe that’s just me feeling the after-effects of listening to the new single “Plerõma,” with its winding riff and striking melodic turn. As with DVNE‘s 2021 long-player, Etemen Ænka (review here), the new album will be out on Metal Blade.

I’ll also note this isn’t the first time a band has cited the game Dark Souls (released 2011 for PS3/Xbox, remastered in 2018, with sequels in 2012 and 2016) as inspiration. I only mention it in case you, like me, just got out of an 835-hour relationship with Tears of the Kingdom and are looking for something on the rebound.

Meanwhile, preorders are up, the video’s at the bottom of the post and the album info and tour dates came from the PR wire.

Have at it:

DVNE VOIDKIND

DVNE: Scottish Progressive Post-Metal Collective To Release Voidkind April 19th On Metal Blade Records; New Video/Single Now Playing + Preorders Available

Scottish progressive post-metal act DVNE will release their new full-length, Voidkind, on April 19th via Metal Blade Records.

Formed in Edinburgh in 2013 by Frenchman Victor Vicart and native Scot Dudley Tait, progressive post-metal/sludge artisans DVNE have been building a powerful head of steam since their second album, 2021’s kaleidoscopically mesmerizing Etemen Ænka. Their first release for the legendary Metal Blade Records label, the LP was a concerted hike up the greasy pole for this enigmatic outfit, enabling DVNE to embark on UK and European headline tours and win spots at such discerning festivals as Hellfest, ArcTanGent, Desertfest, Damnation, and Resurrection. A live EP of reimagined album tunes, 2022’s Cycles Of Asphodel, kept up their profile while satiating demand from a rapidly mushrooming fanbase, and now in 2024, stunning third album Voidkind looks set to propel this expanded five-piece line-up (welcoming Maxime Keller on keyboards) to the top of their game.

Voidkind succeeds in finding new modes of expression for DVNE. The songs are more pointed, direct, and memorable, but the soundscape still has a radiant, evolving, hypnotic flow, the effect achieved with fewer layers of sonic ornamentation, consciously urging closer to DVNE’s incendiary live sound. And despite the addition of a full-time keyboardist, Vicart has no doubt about the album’s defining feature, “We wanted very distinct left and right guitars, and punchier drums and bass, which would transcribe better live. And the synths needed to be clearer; it’s very easy to put five guitars on each side, loads of different vocals and keys, but then you end up watching a band with an album you really like, and the songs sound nothing like the record. That’s what we wanted to avoid. As soon as the song starts, we want people to immediately recognise the riff.”

Conceptually, the lyrics continue the band’s overarching narrative – “following a religious group through the generation line from the beginning to its end” – while Voidkind’s extraordinary sleeve art depicts the main theme of this chapter, namely, “a godlike entity seducing and luring followers through their dreams and these followers’ multigenerational journey to reach their god dimension.”

One book that has been particularly impactful on the band’s thought process: 1989 novel Hyperion by Dan Simmonds. Notes Vicart, “It’s a very dark Sci-Fi book with loads of interesting parts, so you can go really prog with it, but you can also go more violent and animalistic.” Further inspirational touchstones include FromSoftware video game Dark Souls, and the Japanese manga series that inspired it, Berserk, “It’s a very cool, violent, psychedelic, medieval dark fantasy,” explains Vicart. “We wanted to have these kinds of visuals and aesthetics on this album, in this mix-up of things. Even without the vocals we wanted to evoke something, different places and spaces, and take the listener on a journey.”

Vicart further elaborates on the themes driving “Plerõma,” the first single from Voidkind, and its accompanying video, which was directed by Vicart, “Plerõma is a concept that has appeared in Gnosticism, Greek Philosophy, and Judeo-Christian religions. In Gnosticism, it is the spiritual universe as the abode of God and of the totality of the divine powers and emanations. It is also the ultimate source of transformation. ‘Plerõma’ is a key moment of the album narrative where religious followers are consuming the essence of their deity and reach a new sense of awakened existence. It is the first step in their transformation. Musically, it also represents something similar to us, as it is a song that is bringing new elements that we didn’t explore musically until that point.”

Voidkind was recorded between September and November 2023 in Edinburgh at Craigiehall Temple and Byres Farm in Scotland and features the stunning artwork of Felix Abel Klae.

The record will be released on CD and digital formats as well as 2xLP in the following color variants:

Burnt Skin Marble (US)
White Black Marble (US)
Dark Crimson Marbled (EU)
180g Black (EU)
Grey Brown w/ Black Smoke (EU – ltd. 500)
Crystal Clear (EU – ltd. 300)
White/Black Dust (EU – ltd. 300)
Clear w/ Black Smoke (EU – ltd. 666)
Clear w/ Black, Red + Gold Splatter (EU – ltd.200)
Clear w/ Black Smoke (Band Exclusive – ltd. 666 available HERE)
Clear w/ Black, Red + Gold Splatter (Band Exclusive – ltd. 200 available HERE)

Find preorders at metalblade.com/dvne.

Voidkind Track Listing:
1. Summa Blasphemia
2. Eleonor
3. Reaching for Telo
4. Reliquar
5. Path of Dust
6. Sarmatae
7. Path of Ether
8. Abode of the Perfect Soul
9. Plerõma
10. Cobalt Sun Necropoli

Following the release of Voidkind, DVNE will embark on a European Spring tour which includes shows with Sleemo, Conjurer, and My Diligence on select dates. See all confirmed dates below.

DVNE Live:
4/23/2024 The Cluny – Newcastle, UK w/ Sleemo
4/24/2024 Brudenell — Leeds, UK w/ Sleemo
4/25/2024 Voodoo Daddies – Norwich, UK w/ Sleemo
4/26/2024 Green Door Store – Brighton, UK w/ Sleemo
4/27/2024 The Exchange – Bristol, UK w/ Sleemo
4/28/2024 Devils Dog – Birmingham, UK w/ Sleemo
5/04/2024 Headbangers – Ball Izegem, BE w/ Conjurer
5/05/2024 P8 – Karlsruhe, DE w/ Conjurer
5/07/2024 Casseopia – Berlin, DE w/ Conjurer
5/08/2024 Rosenkeller – Jena, DE w/ Conjurer
5/09/2024 Schon Schön – Mainz, DE w/ Conjurer
5/10/2024 Dunk Festival – Ghent, BE
5/11/2024 Hall Of Fame – Tilburg, NL w/ Conjurer
5/16/2024 La Belle Angele – Edinburgh, UK
5/19/2024 Desertfest, – London, UK
5/22/2024 Le Ferrailleur – Nantes, FR w/ My Diligence
5/23/2024 Le Confort Moderne – Poitiers, FR w/ My Diligence
5/24/2024 Le Rex – Toulouse, FR w/ My Diligence
5/26/2024 L’Antirouille – Montpellier, FR w/ My Diligence
5/28/2024 Les Caves du Manoir – Martigny, CH w/ My Diligence
5/29/2024 Amperage – Grenoble, FR w/ My Diligence
5/30/2024 La Laiterie – Strasbourg, FR w/ My Diligence
5/31/2024 Black Lab – Lille, FR w/ My Diligence
6/01/2024 Le Petit Bain – Paris, FR w/ My Diligence
6/02/2024 Club Zentral – Stuttgart, DE
6/04/2024 Rockhouse – Salzburg, AT
6/05/2024 Dürer Kert – Budapest, HU
6/06/2024 Escape – Vienna, AT
6/08/2024 Mystic Festival – Gdansk, PL
6/09/2024 Into The Grave Festival – Leeuwarden, NL
6/11/2024 Le Botanique – Brussels, BE w/ My Diligence
6/19/2024 Copenhell – Copenhagen, DK

DVNE Album Lineup:
Allan Paterson – guitars, bass
Daniel Barter – vocals
Dudley Tait – drums
Maxime Keller – keys, vocals
Victor Vicart – guitars, keys, vocals

DVNE Live Lineup:
Allan Paterson – bass
Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals
Dudley Tait – drums
Maxime Keller – keys, vocals
Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals
Occasional Live Member:
Alexandros Keros – bass

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, “Plerõma” official video

DVNE, Voidkind (2024)

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Hair of the Dog Call it Quits & Discuss New Project Elmsrow

Posted in Whathaveyou on March 8th, 2024 by JJ Koczan

Earlier this week, Edinburgh classic-style heavy rockers Hair of the Dog announced they were done, and it’s worth noting that their announcement came some four years after they actually marked the end of the band. Fair enough. They are not the only ones for whom life has taken unexpected directions in the 2020s, and what it turns out has happened is that the trio — who released their third album, It’s Just a Ride (discussed here), early in 2020 — came back together and enough had changed that they’re becoming a new band.

So it’s Hair of the Dog out and Elmsrow in, though how that shift will play out sound-wise is still to be heard. After reading the band’s post that you can see in the image below dutifully hoisted from their social media, I asked guitarist/vocalist Adam Holt — joined in either outfit by drummer Jon Holt and bassist Iain Thomson — for some more details about the transition from one to the next and where he thinks it might be leading. His answers are what you’ll find in the blue text below.

In a spirit of looking forward, dig:

hair of the dog announce

So as our post says, we felt like we were on a bit of a roll on the lead up to “It’s Just a Ride”, we had just lined up a host of spring and summer festivals and were busy marking out a tour between them all – with a particular focus on spending time in Germany where a majority of our fan base is located. We were super stoked on the new record, really proud of it and just bursting to get it out and hit the road…

Then BOOM literally over night, Scotland and the entire UK is put into a lockdown that just went on and on, month to month until basically two years of our lives were gone along with 80% of my livelihood, out with the band.

That first lockdown also coincided nicely with the birth of my first child. So yeah, rough times. Showing your parents their grandson through the patio door as they sit on deckchairs on your lawn X amount of distance away in masks…my son was 3 months old by the time lockdown restrictions had eased enough for his grandparents to hold him for the first time.

I just fell out of love with music and quite frankly life.

I’m prone to bouts of depression, so I wallowed in that for months and then one day picked the guitar up and 1..2…3…..4……out came a succession of song ideas. But they weren’t Hair of the Dog.

I’d felt it for months but knew then that Hair of the Dog was done.

That chapter just felt done. I don’t think it would even feel right singing and playing those songs now, I don’t feel like that person anymore. The pandemic killed the momentum, killed the vibe, and ultimately killed the band we knew as Hair of the Dog.

So the only clear thing to do was to start a fresh…with a new name. We are so early in the process that we only finalised the name this week, Elmsrow.

How do the two bands compare? Well, it’s still myself, my brother Jon and our lifelong friend Iain. Musically though, the only similarity will be the odd lean towards the blues… but other influences include, Tool, Deftones, Kal-El (been really digging Kal-El of late), Dozer, Red Fang… yeah, far removed. It certainly fills a gap in what I personally would want to hear, which is usually a good sign. You got to be into the music you make.

I’d been getting really bad cramps in both my hands during HOTD last run of shows. To the point that my pick would just fall out my fingers because I couldn’t feel or move my hands. It’s been utterly devastating to have developed this, but as a result I’m going to be pulling back on the guitar work and focusing more on my love of unusual and challenging chords and chord sequences. There’s a lot of melody and harmony to be found under the heaviness. Iain really takes centre stage in Elmsrow, and gets an opportunity to show why he’s the best bass player in the underground, maybe even world…. in my opinion. And drummers will rejoice, as Jon too shines through on this new material.

It’s exciting, it will probably divide HOTD fans, but music needs to come from the heart and sadly, post-pandemic, my heart personally, was no longer in that band.

All we have at present is the name, the music (minus any lyrics) and a lot of exciting plans. One of these is a feature length documentary about the creation of our first new EP, but more specifically a look at what it’s like to be a band in the underground, what goes into being a band and why? Haha why do middle-aged men such as ourselves around the world NEED this in their life?

https://www.facebook.com/hairofthedoguk/
https://www.instagram.com/hairofthedog_uk/
https://hairofthedog.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=ocBdl3CSRvA

Hair of the Dog, “It’s Just a Ride” official video

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DVNE Announce Spring 2023 UK Tour

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 13th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

Edinburgh-based heavy progressive metallers DVNE are set to hit the road across the UK next April as a precursor to appearing at Resurrection Fest in Spain and ArcTanGent in England. They go ostensibly as they continue to support 2021’s Etemen Ænka (review here), which will be two years old by the time these shows start, but is a cause worth supporting nonetheless. And for the merch table, they did issue a live album earlier this year. Actually, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if they put together an EP or something ahead of next Spring and Summer and hit the road harder again, but if this is it, then at least they’re getting out. Certainly right around March 2021 there wasn’t a lot of that happening, UK or elsewhere.

I was fortunate enough to catch DVNE for the second time this past summer as they appeared at Freak Valley Festival (review here), and hearing the complex structures and melodies from Etemen Ænka come through with no letup on impact — that blend of progressivism and heft — was only reassuring when it comes to their presentation of the work live. I guess that’s my way of saying if you dug the record — stream is below for a refresher — you won’t be disappointed by how they present it live, as sharply-produced as that album is.

Shows shows shows. You like shows, right? Cool:

Dvne uk tour 2023

DVNE 2023 UK tour kicking off in April!

We’ll be playing 6 headlining shows with a beautiful tour support (soon to be revealed). Tickets info at:
https://www.songsofarrakis.com/pages/tour

TUE 11 APRIL Stereo Glasgow, UK
WED 12 APRIL Nottingham Bodega Nottingham, UK
THU 13 APRIL The Corporation Sheffield, UK
FRI 14 APRIL Crofters Rights Bristol Bristol, UK
SAT 15 APRIL Oslo Hackney London, UK
SUN 16 APRIL Soup Manchester, UK
WED 28 JUNE – SAT 1 JULY Resurrection Fest 2023 Viveiro, Spain
WED 16 AUGUST ArcTanGent 2023 Compton Martin, UK

Excited to get back on the road.

Art by Chris J Alliston

Dvne line-up:
Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals, keys
Dudley Tait – drums
Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals
Allan Paterson – bass
Maxime Keller – keys

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://twitter.com/SongsOfArrakis
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, Etemen Ænka (2021)

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Quarterly Review: Messa, Witchpit, Dirty Nips, Ocean to Burn, Mt. Echo, Earl of Hell, Slugg, Mirage, An Evening Redness, Cryptophaser

Posted in Reviews on April 7th, 2022 by JJ Koczan

THE-OBELISK-FALL-2020-QUARTERLY-REVIEW

It’s been a load road, getting from there to here, and here isn’t even there yet if you know what I mean. Alas, Thursday. Day four — 4, IV, I can’t remember how I’ve been writing it out — of the Spring 2022 Quarterly Review, and it’s a doozy. These things are always packed, in fact it’s pretty much the idea, but I still find that even this week as I’m putting out 10 reviews a day — we’ll get to 60 total next Monday — I’m playing catchup with more stuff coming down the pike. It seems more and more like each Quarterly Review I’ve done out of like the last five could’ve been extended a day beyond what it already was.

Alas, Thursday. Overwhelmed? Me too.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

Messa, Close

Messa close

After two LPs through Aural Music, Italy’s Messa arrive via Svart with a crucial third album in Close. The hype surrounding the record has been significant, and Close earns every bit of it across its 10-song/64-minute run, intricately arranged as the Italian four-piece continue to bridge stylistic gaps with an ease born of expansive songcraft and stunning performance, first from vocalist Sara Bianchin (also percussion) and further from guitarist Alberto Piccolo (also oud, mandolin), bassist/synthesist/vocalist Marco Zanin (also various keys and percussion), and drummer Rocco Toaldo (also harsh vocals, percussion), who together create a complete and encompassing vision of doom that borrows periodically from black metal as anything artsy invariably must, but is more notable for its command of itself. That is, Messa — through the entirety of the hour-plus — are nothing but masterful. There’s an old photo of The Beatles watching Jimi Hendrix circa 1967, seeming resigned at being utterly outclassed by the ‘next thing.’ It’s easy to imagine much of doom looking at Messa the same way.

Messa on Facebook

Svart Records website

 

Witchpit, The Weight of Death

witchpit the weight of death

If what goes around comes around, then don’t be surprised when “Fire & Ice” goes circle-mosh near the end and you get punched in the head. Old. School. Southern. Sludge. Metal. Dudes play it big, and mean, and grooving. Think of turn of the century acts like Alabama Thunderpussy and Beaten Back to Pure, maybe earlier Sourvein, but with a big old lumbering update in sound thanks to a Phillip Cope recording job and a ferocity of its own. They’ve got a pedigree that includes Black Skies, Manticore and Black Hand Throne, and though The Weight of Death is their first long-player, they’ve been a band for seven years and their anti-dogmatic culmination in “Mr. Miserum” feels sincere as only it can coming from the land of the Southern Baptist Church. Aggression pervades throughout, but the band aren’t necessarily monochromatic. Sometimes they’re mad, sometimes they’re pissed off. Watch out when they’re pissed off. And am I wrong for feeling nostalgic listening? Can’t be too soon for them to be retro, right? Either way, they hit it hard and that’s just fine. Everybody needs to blow off steam sometime.

Witchpit on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds website

 

Dirty Nips, Can O’ Dirty Demo Nipples

Dirty Nips Can o Dirty Demo Nipples

Do I even need to say it, that a band called Dirty Nips offering up a demo called Can O’ Dirty Demo Nipples get up to some pretty cheeky shenanigans therein? I hope not. Still, as the Bristol-via-Poland outfit crunch out the riffs of “The Third Nipple” and harmonica-laced Hank Williams-style country blues on “As I Stumbled” and touch on psychedelic jamming in opener “The Basement” and the later experimental-feeling “Dirty Nips Pt. II,” which just drops to silence in the middle enough to make you wonder if it’s coming back (it is), there’s clearly more going on here than goofball chicanery. “Jechetki” builds on the blues and adds a grunge chug, and closer “Mountain Calling” is — dare I say it? — classy with its blend of acoustic guitar and organ, echoing spoken vocal and engagingly patient realization. They may end up wishing they called themselves something else as time goes on, but as it stands, Dirty Nips‘ demo tape heralds a sonic complexity that makes it that much harder to predict where they might end up, and is all the more satisfying a listen for that.

Dirty Nips on Facebook

Galactic Smokehouse store

 

Ocean to Burn, Vultures

Ocean to Burn Vultures

Though they’re by no means the only band in Sweden to dig into some form of traditionalism in heavy rock, Västerås five-piece Ocean to Burn evoke a decidedly more straight-ahead, Southern-heavy feel throughout the nine songs and 33 minutes of Vultures, their self-released full-length. The throaty grit of vocalist Adam Liifw is a big part of that impression, but in the guitars of Mathilda Haanpää and Fredrik Blomqvist, the tone is more stripped-down than huge-sounding, and the grooves from bassist Pontus Jägervall and drummer Fredrik Hiltunen follow suit. That central purpose suits songs like “Wastelands” and the more strutting “Nay Sayer,” and though they largely stick to their guns style-wise, a bluesier nod on “No Afterlife” early and a breakout in closer “Vulture Road” assure there’s some toying with the balance, even as the tracks all stick to the three- to about four-and-a-half-minute range. They’ve been at it for a while, and seem to revel in the ‘nothin-too-fancy’ attitude of the material, but honestly, they don’t need tricks or novelty to get their point across.

Ocean to Burn on Facebook

Ocean to Burn on Reverbnation

 

Mt. Echo, Electric Empire

Mt Echo Electric Empire

Following an encouraging start in 2019’s Cirrus (review here), Nijmegen instrumentalists Mt. Echo return with the conceptual-feeling Electric Empire, still holding some noise rock crunch in “Automaton” following the opener “Sound & Fury,” but saving its biggest impacts for the angular “50 Fanthoms,” the 10-minute “Flummox” and subsequent “As the Tide Serves,” and on the whole working to bring that side of their approach together with the atmospheric heavy post-rock float of “The End of All Dispute” and the early going of “These Concrete Lungs.” At 10 songs and just under an hour long, Electric Empire has room for world-building, and one of Mt. Echo‘s great strengths is being able to offset patience with urgency and vice versa. By the time they cap with “Torpid,” the trio of Gerben Elburg, Vincent Voogd and Rolf Vonk have worked to further distinguish themselves among their various sans-vocals proggy peers. One hopes they’ll continue on such a path.

Mt. Echo on Facebook

Mt. Echo on Bandcamp

 

Earl of Hell, Get Smoked

Earl of Hell Get Smoked

Vocalist Eric Brock, guitarist/backing vocalist/principal songwriter Lewis Inglis, bassist Dean Gordon and drummer Ryan Wilson are Edinburgh’s Earl of Hell, and their debut EP, Get Smoked, builds on the brash grooves of prior singles “Arryhthmia” (sic) and “Blood Disco,” the latter of which appears as the penultimate of the six included tracks on the 23-minute outing. More stomp-and-swing than punch-you-in-the-face, “I Am the Chill” nonetheless makes its sense of threat clear — it is not about chilling out — as if opener “Hang ’em High” didn’t. Split into two three-song sides each with a shorter track between, it’s in “Parasite” and “Blood Disco” that the band are at their most punk rock, but as the slower “Bitter Fruits” mellows out in opening side B, there’s more to their approach than just full-sprint shove, though don’t tell that to closer “Kill the Witch,” which revels in its call and response with nary a hesitation as it shifts into Spanish-language lyrics. High-octane, punk-informed heavy rock and roll, no pretense of trying to push boundaries; just ripping it up and threaten to burn ladies alive, as one apparently does.

Earl of Hell on Facebook

Slightly Fuzzed Records store

 

Slugg, Yonder

Slugg Yonder

Released on New Year’s Day after being recorded in Dec. 2021 in the trio’s native Rome, “Yonder” serves as the initial public offering and first single from Slugg, and at 9:59, it is more than a vague teaser for the band they might be. The guitar of Jacopo Cautela and the bass of Stephen Drive bring a marked largesse that nonetheless is able to move when called upon to do so by Andrea Giamberardini‘s drumming, and Cautela‘s corresponding vocals are pushed deeper back in the mix to emphasize those tones. Much of the second half of “Yonder” is given to a single, rolling purpose, but the band cleverly turn that into a build as they move forward, leaving behind the gallops of the first few minutes of the song, but making the transition from one side to another smoothly via midsection crashes and ably setting up the ring-out finish that will draw the song to its close. Not without ambition, “Yonder” crushes with a sense of physical catharsis while affecting an atmosphere that is no less broad. They make it easy to hope for more to come along these lines.

Slugg on Facebook

Slugg on Bandcamp

 

Mirage, Telepathic Radio

Mirage Telepathic Radio

Joe Freedman, also of Banshee, first saw Telepathic Radio released as the debut full-length from Mirage in 2021 through Misophonia Records on tape. There are still a few of them left. That version runs 30 songs and 90 minutes. The Cardinal Fuzz/Centripetal Force edition is 50 minutes/20 tracks, but either way you go, get your head ready for dug-in freakness. Like freakness where you open the artwork file for the digital promo and all three versions are the cover of a Rhapsody album. Ostensibly psychedelic, songs play out like snippets from a wandering attention span, trying this weird thing and seeing it through en route to the next. In this way, Telepathic Radio is both broad-ranging and somewhat contained. The recordings are raw, fade in and out and follow their own paths as though recorded over a stretch of time rather than in one studio burst, which seems indeed to be how they were made. Horns, samples, keys, even some guitar, a bit of “TV Party” and “TV Eye” on “TV Screens,” Mirage howls and wails out there on its private wavelength, resolved to be what it is regardless of what one might expect of it. By the time even the 20-track version is done, the thing you can most expect is to have no clue what just happened in your brain. Rad.

Misophonia Records on Bandcamp

Cardinal Fuzz webstore

Centripetal Force Records website

 

An Evening Redness, An Evening Redness

An Evening Redness Self-titled

With its first, self-titled release, An Evening Redness basks in morose Americana atmospheres, slow, patient guitar drones, warm bass and steady rhythms giving way to periodically violent surges. Founded perhaps as a pandemic project for Brandon Elkins of Auditor and Iron Forest, the six-song full-length explores the underlying intensity and threat to person and personhood that a lot of American culture just takes for granted. The name and inspiration for the project are literary — ‘An Evening Redness in the West’ is the subtitle of Cormac McCarthy’s 1985 novel, Blood Meridian — and An Evening Redness, even in the long instrumental stretch of 12-minute opener/longest track (immediate points) “Alkali,” treats the subject matter with duly textured reverence. Elkins isn’t alone here, and the vocals of Bridget Bellavia on the brooding “Mesa Skyline” and the closing pair of “Pariah” and “Black Flame at the Edge of the Desert,” as well as the contributions of other guests in various locales around the world up to and including Elkins‘ native Chicago should not be downplayed in enriching these explorations of space and sound. Bands like Earth and Across Tundras warrant mention as precursors of the form, but An Evening Redness casts its own light in the droning “Winter, 1847” and the harmonica-wailing “The Judge” enough to be wholly distinct from either in portraying the sometimes horrifying bounty of the land and the cruelty of those living in it.

An Evening Redness on Twitter

Transylvanian Recordings on Bandcamp

 

Cryptophaser, XXII

Cryptophaser XXII

Brothers John and Marc Beaudette — who if they aren’t twins are close enough — comprise New Hampshire’s Cryptophaser, and XXII is their first demo, pressed in an edition of 50 purple tapes. Dudes might as well just open my wallet. Fair enough. In what’s a show of chemistry and musical conversation that’s obviously been going on longer than these songs — that is, I highly suspect the maybe-twin brothers who drum and play guitar have been playing together more than a year — they bring an adversarial bent to the conventions of heavy fuzz, and do so with the proverbial gusto, breaking away from monolithic tones in favor of sheer dynamic, and when they shift into the drone in “October 83,” they make themselves a completely different band like it isn’t even a thing. Casual kickass. At 13 minutes, it flows like a full-length and has a full-length’s breadth of ideas (some full-lengths, anyway), and the energy from one moment to the next is infectious, be that next part fast, slow, loud, quiet, or whatever else they want it to be.

Cryptophaser website

Music ADD Records website

 

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DVNE Announce Fall European Tour Dates

Posted in Whathaveyou on July 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

dvne (Photo by Alan Swan)

Check out DVNE with a full Fall of touring. Europe and UK and Damnation Festival to boot. I kind of feel like everybody’s waiting to see what’s going to happen with that pesky Delta Variant — which is SUCH a cooler name than either “coronavirus” or “COVID-19”; I’m not glad the pandemic is ongoing, I am glad it finally hired someone to handle branding — playing havoc in various places around the world, but even if the Edinburgh five-piece can squeeze in a little road time to support this year’s Etemen Ænka (review here), that’s a worthy cause. The release was a highlight of early 2021 and while some of the hype has subsided, the stylistic reach of the album itself has not dulled in the slightest. Getting out and pressing more vinyl, as they are, would be a boon toward forward momentum.

And forward momentum is itself a novelty at this point.

The PR wire has this:

dvne tour

Dvne announces European tour with labelmates Déluge; new Bandcamp exclusive vinyl for ‘Etemen Ænka’ now available!

After releasing their sophomore album, Etemen Ænka, earlier this year – and landing on the worldwide charts for their efforts (#43 in Germany, #65 on the UK Indie Charts!) – Dvne has now announced a European co-headlining tour with labelmates Déluge. Kicking off in September, this will be the first run of shows in support of Etemen Ænka, before the band heads to the UK for an appearance at Damnation Fest, followed by a trek with Bossk in the winter.

See below for all dates! Purchase your tickets now at: https://www.songsofarrakis.com/tour/

Dvne + Déluge 2021 tour dates
Presented by The Link Productions
Sept. 15 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Merleyn
Sept. 16 – Brussels, Belgium – La Botanique
Sept. 17 – Paris, France – Petit Bain
Sept. 19 – Nantes, France – Le Ferrailleur
Sept. 22 – Toulouse, France – Le Rex
Sept. 23 – Madrid, Spain – Caracol
Sept. 24 – Barcelona, Spain – Razz3
Sept. 25 – Bilbao, Spain – Groove
Sept. 26 – Black Sheep, France – Montepellier
Sept. 28 – Lyon, France – Rock N Eat
Sept. 29 – Strasbourg, France – La Maison Bleue
Sept. 30 – Martigny, Switzerland – Les Caves Du Manoir
Oct. 1 – Berlin, Germany – Zukunft am Ostkreuz
Oct. 2 – Poznan, Poland – Pod Minoga
Oct. 3 – Leipzig, Germany – Bandhaus

Dvne live 2021
Nov. 6 – Leeds, UK – Damnation Festival @ Leeds University Union

Dvne 2021 tour dates
w/ Bossk
Dec. 12 – Nottingham, UK – Bodega
https://www.alttickets.com/bossk-tickets
Dec. 13 – Bristol, UK – The Exchange
https://www.seetickets.com/event/bossk/exchange/1816003
Dec. 14 – Birmingham, UK – Mama Roux’s
https://www.seetickets.com/event/bossk/mama-roux-s/1817854
Dec. 15 – London, UK – The Garage
https://formpresents.seetickets.com/event/bossk/the-garage/1817728
Dec. 16 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
https://brudenellsocialclub.seetickets.com/event/bossk/brudenell-social-club/1815299
Dec. 17 – Manchester, UK – Deaf Institute
https://formpresents.seetickets.com/event/bossk/the-deaf-institute/1817729
Dec. 18 – Glasgow, UK – Ivory Blacks
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bossk-dvne-glasgow-tickets-148572489315

A new Bandcamp exclusive vinyl edition of Etemen Ænka – white with black dust (featuring a gatefold jacket, 2-sided insert, and poster) – can be pre-ordered now at: https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com. Limited to 200 copies, this vinyl will be released on August 13th, 2021 – reserve your copy now!

Dvne line-up:
Victor Vicart – guitar, vocals, keys
Dudley Tait – drums
Daniel Barter – guitar, vocals
Allan Paterson – bass
Evelyn May – keys

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://twitter.com/SongsOfArrakis
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, “Sì-XIV” official video

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King Witch Post Video for “Children of the Sea” Black Sabbath Cover

Posted in Bootleg Theater on April 14th, 2021 by JJ Koczan

king witch (Photo by Alan Swan)

There aren’t a lot of singers out there I’d be interested to hear take on a track originally vocalized by Ronnie James Dio, but Laura Donnelly of King Witch — whose voice contains enough power and classic metal righteousness at any given moment to reactivate the volcano under Castle Rock — is one of them. King Witch released their second album, Body of Light (review here), last year through Listenable Records, and thereby built upon the epic foundations laid forth on 2018’s Under the Mountain (review here), striking into purposefully grandiose territory with the brashness of true heavy metal. Some would call covering Dio-era Black Sabbath heresy on its face. What could possibly be more metal than that?

The results are admirable, as the video below demonstrates. Donnelly, guitarist/producer Jamie Gilchrist, bassist Rory Lee and drummer Lyle Brown begin by pulling Sabbath‘s Heaven and Hell off the LP shelf — I spy a copy of Alice in ChainsDirt on there as well; another all-time personal favorite — and then set to unfurling their own version of the track, nailing the deceptively speedy tempo that creates the tension ultimately paid off in the song’s final section. Hitting the notes as required, Donnelly puts her own spin on the delivery just the same, as one would hope, and comes across as trained, professional, and up to the significant task before her. Among the number of pandemic-era cover clips — can’t do shows, gotta do something, could do much worse than recording yourself playing music you like and sharing — King Witch stand out in production quality as well as sheer audacity.

Both are well worthy of respect. So, respect.

Enjoy:

King Witch, “Children of the Sea” official video

Black Sabbath’s Children of the Sea is the first track in King Witch’s forthcoming two part digital covers EP “Worship the Riffs” which was recorded in December 2020 during lockdown.

“We are all huge fans of Black Sabbath and this song is just so epic. It was a great way for us as a band to connect and have a bit of fun during lockdown. We very much hope we do it justice and we hope you enjoy it.”

Keep it heavy – Keep it loud!

Originally performed by Black Sabbath.
Composer/Author: Butler Terrence, Padavona Ronald, Iommi Anthony Frank, Ward W T.
Published by Essex Music International Inc, Niji Music

Produced, mixed & mastered by Jamie Gilchrist (https://www.facebook.com/namelesscitysound?)

Video creation & Artwork by Laura Donnelly (https://www.facebook.com/lauradonnellyart?)

King Witch are :
Laura Donnelly – Vocals
Jamie Gilchrist – Guitar
Rory Lee – Bass
Lyle Brown – Drums

King Witch, Body of Light (2021)

King Witch on Thee Facebooks

King Witch on Instagram

King Witch on Bandcamp

Listenable Records website

Listenable Records on Thee Facebooks

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Quarterly Review: DVNE, Wowod, Trace Amount, Fuzzcrafter, Pine Ridge, Watchman, Bomg, White Void, Day of the Jackal, Green Druid

Posted in Reviews on April 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

quarterly-review-spring-2019

Oh, hello there. Don’t mind me. I’m just here, reviewing another 10 records today. I did it yesterday too. I’ll do it again tomorrow. No big deal. It’s Quarterly Review time. You know how it goes.

Crazy day yesterday, crazy day today, but I’m in that mode where I kind of feel like I can make this go as long as I want. Next Monday? Why not? Other than the fact that I have something else slated, I can’t think of a reason. Fortunately, having something else slated is enough of one. Ha. Let’s go.

Quarterly Review #31-40:

DVNE, Etemen Ænka

dvne Etemen Ænka

It’s like Scotland’s DVNE threw all of modern heavy metal into a blender and hit “cohesive.” Etemen Ænka‘s lofty ambitions are matched indeed by the cohesion of the band’s craft, the professionalism of their presentation, and the scope of their second album’s 10 component tracks, whether that’s in the use of synth throughout “Towers” or the dreamy post-rock aside in “Omega Severer,” the massive riffing used as a tool not a crutch in “Court of the Matriarch,” closer “Satuya” and elsewhere, and even the interlude-y pieces “Weighing of the Heart,” “Adraeden” and the folkish “Asphodel” that leads into the finale. DVNE have made themselves into the band you wish Isis became. Also the band you wish Mastodon became. And probably six or seven others. And while Etemen Ænka is certainly not without prog-styled indulgence, there is no taking away from the significant accomplishment these songs represent for them as a group putting out their first release on Metal Blade. It’ll be too clean for some ears, but the tradeoff for that is the abiding sense of poise with which DVNE deliver the songs. This will be on my year-end list, and I won’t be the only one.

DVNE on Thee Facebooks

Metal Blade Records website

 

Wowod, Yarost’ I Proshchenie

Wowod Yarost I Proshchenie

Beginning with its longest track (immediate points) in the 11-minute “Rekviem,” Yarost’ I Proshchenie is the third full-length from St. Petersburg’s Wowod, and its sudden surge from ‘unfold’ to ‘onslaught’ is a legitimate blindside. They hypnotize you then push you down a flight of stairs as death growls, echoing guitar lines and steady post-metallic drum and bass hold the line rhythmically. This sense of disconnect, ultimately, leads to a place of soaring melody and wash, but that feeling of moving from one place to another is very much the core of what Wowod do throughout the rest of the album that follows. “Tanec Yarosti” is a sub-three-minute blaster, while “Proshschenie” lumbers and crashes through its first half en route to a lush soundscape in its second, rounding out side A. I don’t care what genre “Zhazhda” is, it rules, and launches side B with rampaging momentum, leading to the slow, semi-industrial drag of “Chornaya Zemlya,” the harsh thrust of “Zov Tysyachi Nozhey” and, finally, dizzyingly, the six-minute closer “Top’,” which echoes cavernous and could just as easily have been called “Bottom.” Beautiful brutality.

Wowod on Thee Facebooks

Church Road Records on Bandcamp

 

Trace Amount, Endless Render

trace amount endless render

The chaos of last year is writ large in the late-2020 Endless Render EP from Brooklyn-based solo industrial outfit Trace Amount. The project headed by Brandon Gallagher (ex-Old Wounds) engages with harsh noise and heavy beatmaking, injecting short pieces like “Pop Up Morgues” with a duly dystopian atmosphere. Billy Rymer (The Dillinger Escape Plan, etc.) guests on drums for opener “Processed Violence (in 480P)” and the mminute-long “Seance Stimulant,” but it’s in the procession of the final three tracks — the aforementioned “Pop Up Morgues,” as well as “S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L.” and “Easter Sunday” — that Gallagher makes his most vivid portrayals. His work is evocative and resonant in its isolated feel, opaque like staring into an uncertain future but not without some semblance of hope in its resolution. Or maybe that’s the dream and the dance-party decay of “Dreaming in Displacement” is the reality. One way or the other, I’m looking forward to what Trace Amount does when it comes to a debut album.

Trace Amount on Thee Facebooks

Trace Amount on Bandcamp

 

Fuzzcrafter, C-D

Fuzzcrafter C D

French instrumentalists Fuzzcrafter issued C-D in October 2020 as a clear answer/complement to 2016’s A-B, even unto its Jo Riou cover art, which replaces the desert-and-fuzz-pedal of the first offering with a forest-and-pedal here. The six works that make up the 41-minute affair are likewise grown, able to affect a sense of lushness around the leading-the-way riffage in extended cuts “C2” (13:13) and the psychedelic back half of “D2” (13:18), working in funk-via-prog basslines (see also the wah guitar starting “D1” for more funk) over solid drums without getting any more lost than they want to be in any particular movement. In those songs and elsewhere, Fuzzcrafter make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re a riff-based band, but the acoustic side-finales in “C3” (which also features Rhodes piano) and “D3,” though shorter, reinforce both the structural symmetry of the mirrored sides as a whole and a feeling of breadth that is injected elsewhere in likewise organic fashion. They’re not changing the world and they’re not trying to, but there’s a mark being left here sound-wise and it’s enough to wonder what might be in store for the inevitable E-F.

Fuzzcrafter on Thee Facebooks

Fuzzcrafter on Bandcamp

 

Pine Ridge, Can’t Deny

Pine Ridge Can't Deny

Pine Ridge‘s second album, Can’t Deny, finds the Russian four/five-piece working in textures of keys and organ for a bluesier feel to tracks like the post-intro opening title-cut and the classic feeling later “Genesis.” Songwriting is straightforward, vocals gritty but well attended with backing arrangements, and the take on “Wayfaring Stranger” that ends the record’s first half conjures enough of a revivalist spirit to add to the atmosphere overall. The four tracks that follow — “Genesis,” “Runaway,” “Sons of Nothing” and “Those Days” — featured as well on 2019’s Sons of Nothing EP, but are consistent in groove and “Sons of Nothing” proves well placed to serve as an energetic apex of Can’t Deny ahead of “Those Days,” which starts quiet before bursting to life with last-minute electricity. A clear production emphasizes hooks and craft, and though I’ll grant I don’t know much about Siberia’s heavy rock scene, Pine Ridge ably work within the tenets of style while offering marked quality of songwriting and performance. That’s enough to ask from anywhere.

Pine Ridge on Thee Facebooks

Karma Conspiracy website

 

Watchman, Behold a Pale Horse

watchman behold a pale horse

Plain in its love for Sabbath-minded riffing and heavy Americana roll, “Bowls of Wrath” opens the three-song Dec. 2020 debut EP, Behold a Pale Horse, from Indiana-based solo-project Watchman, and the impression is immediate. With well-mixed cascades of organ and steadily nodding guitar, bass, drums and distorted, howling vocals, there is both a lack of pretense and an individualized take on genre happening at once. The EP works longest to shortest, with “Wormwood” building up from sparse guitar to far-back groove using negative space in the sound to bolster “Planet Caravan”-ish watery verses and emphasize the relative largesse of the track preceding as well as “The Second Death,” which follows. That closer is a quick four minutes that’s slow in tempo, but the lead-line cast overtop the mega-fuzzed central riff is effective in creating a current to carry the listener from one bank of the lake of fire to the other. In 15 minutes, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist/producer Roy Waterford serves notice of intention for a forthcoming debut LP to be titled Doom of Babylon, and it is notice worth heeding.

Watchman on Instagram

Watchman on Bandcamp

 

Bomg, Peregrination

bomg peregrination

Bomg‘s Peregrination isn’t necessarily extreme the way one thinks of death or black metal as extreme styles of heavy metal, but is extreme just the same in terms of pushing to the outer limits of the aesthetics involved. The album’s four track, “Electron” (38:12), “Perpetuum” (39:10), “Paradigm” (37:17) and “Emanation” (37:49), could each consume a full 12″ LP on their own, and presented digitally one into the next, they are a tremendous, willfully unmanageable two-and-a-half-hour deep-dive into raw blowout dark psychedelic doom. The harsh rumble and noise in “Perpetuum” some 28 minutes on sounds as though the Ukrainian outfit have climbed the mountains of madness, and there is precious little clarity to be found in “Paradigm” or “Emanation” subsequent as they continue to hammer the spike of their manifestations deeper into the consciousness of the listener. From “Electron” onward, the self-recording Kyiv trio embark on this overwhelming journey into the unknown, and they don’t so much invite you along as unveil the devastating consequences of having made the trip. Righteously off-putting.

Bomg on Thee Facebooks

Robustfellow Productions on Bandcamp

 

White Void, Anti

white void anti

As much as something can fly under the radar and be a Nuclear Blast release, I’m more surprised by the hype I haven’t heard surrounding White Void‘s debut album, Anti. Pulling together influences from progressive European-style heavy rock, classic metal, cult organ, New Wave melodies and a generally against-grain individualism, it is striking in its execution and the clear purpose behind what it’s doing. It’s metal and it’s not. It’s rock and it’s pop and it’s heavy and it’s light and floating. And its songs have substance as well as style. With Borknagar‘s Lars Nedland as the founding principal of the project, the potential in Anti‘s eight component tracks is huge, and if one winds up thinking of this as post-black metal, it’s a staggeringly complex iteration of it to which this and any other description I’ve seen does little justice. It’s going to get called “prog” a lot because of the considered nature of its composition, but that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s happening here.

White Void on Thee Facebooks

Nuclear Blast Records store

 

Day of the Jackal, Day Zero

Day of the Jackal Day Zero

Leeds, UK, four-piece Day of the Jackal bring straight-ahead hard rock songwriting and performance with an edge of classic heavy. There’s a Guns ‘n’ Roses reference in “Belief in a Lie” if you’re up for catching it, and later cuts like “Riskin’ it All” and “‘Til the Devil” have like-minded dudes-just-hit-on-your-girlfriend-and-you’re-standing-right-there vibes. They’re a rock band and they know it, and while I was a little bummed out “Rotten to the Core” wasn’t an Overkill cover, the 10 songs of love and death that pervade this debut long-player are notably hooky from “On Your Own” to “Deadfall” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll Deathride,” which casually inhabits biker riffing with no less ease of movement than the band would seem to do anything else. Production by James “Atko” Atkinson of Gentlemans Pistols highlights the clarity of the performance rather than giving a rawer glimpse at who Day of the Jackal might be on stage, but there’s plenty of vitality to go around in any case, and it’s headed your way from the moment you start the record.

Day of the Jackal on Thee Facebooks

Day of the Jackal on Bandcamp

 

Green Druid, At the Maw of Ruin

green druid at the maw of ruin

Following their 2018 debut, Ashen Blood (review here), Denver heavy lifters Green Druid give due breadth to their closing take on Portishead‘s “Threads,” but the truth is that cover is set up by the prior five tracks of huge-sounding riffery, basking in the varying glories of stoner doom throughout opener “The Forest Dark” while keeping an eye toward atmospheric reach all the while. It is not just nod and crush, in other words, in Green Druid‘s arsenal throughout At the Maw of Ruin, and indeed, “End of Men” and “Haunted Memories” bridge sludge and black metal screaming as “A Throne Abandoned” offers surprising emotional urgency over its ready plod, and the long spoken section in “Desert of Fury/Ocean of Despair” eventually gives way not only to the most weighted slamming on offer, but a stretch of noise to lead into the closer. All along the way, Green Druid mark themselves out as a more complex outfit than their first record showed them to be, and their reach shows no sign of stopping here either.

Green Druid on Thee Facebooks

Earache Records website

 

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DVNE to Release Etemen Ænka March 19; New Video Posted

Posted in Whathaveyou on January 21st, 2021 by JJ Koczan

DVNE have set March 19 as the release date for their new album, Etemen Ænka, which is to serve as their debut on Metal Blade Records. The arrival of the record would seem to have been a while in the making — the band had inked a deal with RidingEasy in 2019, shortly before they made a return appearance at Psycho Las Vegas, there they’d made their US live debut the prior year (review here) — but certainly the fact that it’s on Metal Blade that the full-length arrives is notable in itself. It’s not every day a band like this puts out a record on a label like this.

And when it comes to “a band like this,” DVNE stand largely apart despite pulling together familiar stylistic elements of progressive and post-metal. In their new single, “Sì-XIV,” their penchant for atmospherics does little to undercut the impact of harder-hitting stretches. This is actually the second audio to make its way to the public behind the issued-on-its-own Omega Severer (review here), which will also appear on Etemen Ænka when it arrives in March.

The PR wire has art and info to spare:

dvne Etemen Ænka

Dvne reveals details for new album, ‘Etemen Ænka’; launches video for new single, “Sì-XIV”

On March 19th, Dvne will release their sophomore album, Etemen Ænka, via Metal Blade Records. For a first preview of the record, a video for the new single “Si?-XIV” can be viewed at: metalblade.com/dvne – where Etemen Ænka can also be pre-ordered in the following formats:

– digisleeve-CD
– 180g black vinyl (EU exclusive)
– raisin rouge marbled vinyl (EU exclusive – limited to 400 copies)
– grey / yellow-green marbled vinyl (EU exclusive – limited to 300 copies)
– gold / black dust vinyl (EU exclusive – limited to 200 copies)
– clear / black dust vinyl (Kings Road exclusive – limited to 100 copies)
– dark goldenrod marbled vinyl (US exclusive)
– clear ash gray marbled vinyl (US exclusive)

Dvne comments: “With the context of covid and the strong travel restrictions we’ve had in the UK and Europe, shooting ‘SI-XIV’ was a real challenge, but we’re glad we could make it happen.
The video was split between two shoots: we worked once again with our close friends Just-Aurèle Meissonnier, Louis Macéra, Gilles Garniers and Michel Jocaille for the creature part of the shoot (shot in Paris); the rest of the video footage was shot in Edinburgh by Calum McMillan and our light tech Sam Jones.

We’ve always loved prosthetic effects and wanted to use our own creations in the video, but the overall aesthetic takes no small amount of inspiration from some of our favourite 70/80s sci-fi horror films. We had this concept of a weird humanoid-type creature facing the overwhelming harshness and the hopeless nature of its existence.

The video symbolically follows the narrative theme of the track within the new album, with the creature attempting to escape its nature through metamorphosis throughout the video. It was an incredibly fun few days setting up and shooting all the creature parts in Paris.”

Dvne are a band of great contrasts, weaving titanic heaviness and intricate gentleness together, complex lyrical ideas with engaging storylines, and this has only been expanded upon and concentrated on second album Etemen Ænka. “It’s an album that has a narrative musically, and we hope that will encourage the listener to explore the universe we’ve created around it,” states guitarist/vocalist Victor Vicart. “It is a very dense and layered album which will reward multiple listens, and while this is becoming a recurring aspect of our music, we feel that we went further with it this time. It’s also a very polarizing album, emotionally speaking. The heavy sections are, well, very heavy, while the clean sections are much more intricate and delicate – and in a way wouldn’t be out of place in a Studio Ghibli anime soundtrack.” Exploring everything in greater depth in every way, it is a profound step forward from 2017’s Asheran, starting an exciting new chapter in the existence of one of the most thrilling and imaginative metal bands active today. “We knew we wanted to include keys and synths in the equation. We wanted to be able to add new textures and new sounds that weren’t on our previous releases, and we felt that this was something that will give us more options creatively. Looking back, that was a great decision because we’ve used synths for everything, with ambient sounds, heavy subs and actual leads, which really added a new dynamic to this album. We’ve also kept this balance between down-tuned heavy riffs and clean movements, which were already present in ‘Asheran’, but we really wanted to make sure we could capture more details and subtleties once recorded,” explains Vicart. Synths are in fact so present, and at times so unapologetically 80s, that they sound like the soundtrack to a classic sci-fi, which may well surprise fans, the band confident in every step they took musically.

Etemen Ænka is also Dvne’s second collaboration with producer Graeme Young in Edinburgh’s Chamber Studio, having developed a great working relationship with him on Asheran – “he acts like an extra member of the band and really pushes us to do better takes.” This made for a smooth and productive recording process, the challenging part coming before they entered the studio. “The composition was challenging because we second guess every riff that gets written. We want to keep things fresh, and we want to keep the energy high too, so the initial creative stage can become intense. Then, because our tracks are pretty big and dense with ideas and movements, we didn’t finalize each track structure until we started laying down the drums. But I think it’s what made the whole recording process so much fun too, because it allowed us to really think about the different options available without committing to a final structure too early in the process.” The record also features guest vocals courtesy of Lissa Robertson, who sings on “Omega Severer” and “Asphodel” and contributes spoken word on “Weighing Of The Heart” – her voice adding yet another depth to the heavily layered collection.

Tracklisting:
1. Enûma Eliš
2. Towers
3. Court of the Matriarch
4. Weighing of the Heart
5. Omega Severer
6. Adræden
7. Sì-XIV
8. Mleccha
9. Asphodel
10. Satuya

https://www.facebook.com/DvneUK
https://twitter.com/SongsOfArrakis
https://www.instagram.com/dvne_uk/
https://songs-of-arrakis.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/metalbladerecords
https://www.instagram.com/metalbladerecords/
https://www.metalblade.com/

DVNE, “Sì-XIV” official video

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