Album Review: Vokonis, Transitions
Posted in Reviews on October 29th, 2024 by JJ Koczan
Transitions walks a line between being resoundingly complex and beat-you-over-the-head straightforward. The fifth full-length from Sweden’s Vokonis is the first to come from the Borås-based band since guitarist/vocalist Simona Ohlsson realized and began living as herself, and much of the thematic throughout the six-song/43-minute outing derives from that experience, as telegraphed from the glorious Kyrre Bjurling cover art referencing the trans pride flag to song titles like “Deadname,” which opens the record in likewise righteous and riotous style, to “Chrysalis,” “Arrival” and “Transitions.” It is a tumultuous course. Ohlsson, drummer Sven Lindsten and bassist/backing vocalist Oscar Johannesson explore a shift in dynamic after the departure of guitarist Jonte Johansson — since the recording, the band has brought in Hedvig Modig on guitar, backing vocals and noise — but there is no confusion, either of craft or the underlying expressive purpose to which it’s being put.
Some of what Transitions sets itself toward accomplishing in terms of the band’s sound received a preface with last year’s Majestic Mountain Records label-debut Exist Within Light EP (discussed here), but these tracks — recorded with Mikael Andersson at Studio Soundport, who also mixed (Magnus Lindberg mastered) — are a triumph unto themselves, sonically as well as in terms of the emotional and existential journey being conveyed through the material. It’s not a tale that gets whitewashed or oversimplified, and as “Deadname” picks up from its quiet intro about 30 seconds into the album, it begins a rush of deep-curl riffage and chug that reminds of Leviathan-era Mastodon before receding to an insistent chug behind the first verse, which for many listeners will be the first time hearing Ohlsson‘s voice post-transition. She is admirably unflinching in that moment, and while there are still harsh vocals to be found throughout Transitions, the choice to begin melodic, to not flinch from demonstrating to their audience who the band is, feels purposeful and powerful. “Deadname” has a hook, and the lyrics, in which Ohlsson simultaneously hopes and commands “Stay with me” in the chorus, ending with the line, “Forget my deadname.”
The conservatism of underground heavy as a genre takes multiple shapes, among them political, and there are aspects of Transitions that feel bold in their undulled defiance against that. Not only does the pocket culture of doom/heavy need voices beyond the disaffected-straight-white-dude paradigm, it needs them from bands like Vokonis, who are able to channel such a self-declaration into songs that are consuming regardless of one’s awareness of the context. “Phantom Carriage” follows behind the leadoff as the raging second piece in a four-song side A set — “Arrival” (10:50) and “Transitions” (12:24) comprise side B on their own — and brings harsher vocals, black metal-style char in the layering of guitar, and a crunch of extremity in the low riffing that sets up a contrast to the soaring chorus without falling into modern heavy metal’s growl-verse-sing-chorus trap of predictability. Vokonis aren’t strangers to embracing their more brutal side, whether one wants to bring in 2019’s Odyssey (review here) as a comparison point or any of their work prior, but the aggression early in “Phantom Carriage” becomes part of a more complex scope as the song breaks in its midsection for a moment of likewise Mastodonic proggy echoing guitar (I think I hear acoustic layered in there as well, plus effects) and contemplative melodicism.
Then of course it comes roaring back as Lindsten‘s drums turn to the toms and the band digs in again ahead of the solo. A final chorus reignites the earlier charge as “Phantom Carriage” pushes to the finish, and the subsequent “Ping Fang” (video premiere here) is no less crucial to the procession of Transitions as a whole for being a four-minute good-time-groover blowout. It sounds free, and true to the title’s reference to the band Red Fang, is refreshing in not taking itself too seriously. The shortest song on the record, it answers the heft of tone wrought in “Phantom Carriage” and the winding movement of “Deadname” with a rocker’s mindset, sweeping into its chorus at about a minute and a half into its course, still with some sinister edge as the guitars converse with each other, hinting at the midpoint explosion as it comes from a whisper-topped stretch and quickly moves into a bridge en route back to the hook from whence it came. Pointedly not fluff, “Pink Fang” is nonetheless unrepentantly fun while staying in league sound-wise with the rest of what surrounds by remaining heavy as all get-out.
With “Chrysalis,” the back-and-forth nature of Transitions‘ A-side comes back into play in terms of the rougher vocals, but the way the notes echo out of the chorus guitar brings differentiation between it and “Phantom Carriage” as the galloping progression slams headfirst at 1:28 into a sludge-metal chug worthy of 16 that’s given a duly nasty growl overtop. They’ll bring that tradeoff back again in short order, followed by a solo, but they save bludgeoning nod for the finish, and they’re only right to do so as the last of th album’s structurally-taut material gives over to “Arrival” and “Transitions.” These two more extended cuts feel separate in intention from the likes of “Pink Fang,” and they are, but I don’t think being able to do more than one thing on a record hurts Vokonis and the tones are consistent even as “Arrival” unfolds its first half with a patience that offsets the urgency of side A, while as one might expect taking on a more encompassing sound. The punch of bass behind the bridge soon joined by far-back vocals grounds as the drums crash and the guitars embrace entwined meander, and at 6:31, the band aligns ahead of the solo and turn to meaner and more intense fare.
It’s not unexpected that “Arrival” would play out in such a way as to account for the beastlier side of the band, and the concluding title-track follows suit, but as they have all along, Vokonis render these changes fluidly and in more than obligatory okay-now-we-get-growly style. The ordering between the side B pair is somewhat counterintuitive — one expects to ‘arrive’ at the end, and indeed “Arrival” is a crescendo of sorts as it complements its harder-hitting parts with melodic breadth and rides out with deceptive grace over double-kick and, ultimately, standalone guitar — but the closer will not be denied its place, less because it’s the longest track than because it’s both the core of the story being told and the point at which the various elements at work across the album that shares its name come together and look to the future. “Transitions” is supposed to be a bumpier path, and it is, but Vokonis remain in control as screams and crooning go line-for-line in the first half or the band find their way into a head-down stretch of faster gallop, breaking at 4:40 with a crash to let the bass begin to rebuild.
They dwell in this part of the closer in a way they dwell nowhere else on Transitions. For more than two minutes, the guitar and bass seem to search, and before the drums thud back in at 7:08, there’s full silence. Is this the moment of transition made? Is it leaving behind the person the world thought you were to be who you now know you’ve been all along? I don’t know, but as “Transitions” begins anew more than halfway in, keyboard/effects sounds accompany the build of rhythm and the gradual alignment of the guitars, and the resulting roll creates a landscape in which the returning vocals are lower-mixed and contemplative en route to a plotted solo no less soulful. This is the ending. The solo becomes part of the backdrop and the vocals come back one last time, and from there the song kind of takes itself apart, the hum of keyboard or synth as the last piece to go. Any headscratching as to why “Arrival” doesn’t end the album is answered by the title-track itself, and as they’ve already offered that final solace, ending Transitions with “Transitions” comes across as correspondingly poignant and true to the spirit of the record as a whole, which at no point shies away from honesty in telling the story it tells.
I don’t know how things are for trans people in Sweden. I know that where I live, violence against LGBTQ+ individuals is a largely-ignored daily horror, and as the parent of a trans child, I won’t pretend to be impartial in my admiration of the way in which Transitions proclaims Ohlsson or the band as a whole. But I’ve covered Vokonis since their days as Creedsmen Arise, and this record presents the truest vision of persona I’ve yet heard from them. Amid encroaching fascism and the devaluing of lives, it is a breath of fresh air, and a vibrant victory in the face of a darkness that would punish it for nothing more than existing as itself. Fuck that world. This is the one to live in.
Vokonis, Transitions (2024)
Majestic Mountain Records store
