VÖLUR — Ancestors (review)

Album · 2017 · Doom Metal

4.5/5 · 2017-08-21
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The Canadian trio known as Völur are not your typical metal group. With a line-up that features Blood Ceremony's Lucas Gadke (bass, vocals, double bass, keyboards) and is completed by Laura Bates (violin, vocals, effects) and Jimmy P Lightning (drums), you'll notice the conspicuous absence of one of the genre's core instruments: the guitar. Ancestors (2017) is the group's second album following Disir (2016) and is part of a four album series on the old Germanic spiritual world. The album is typically presented as four long, multi-part songs, but some versions (at least the iTunes and Spotify ones) split these up into multiple tracks, bringing the album up to seventeen. Due to the following together nature of each full composition I have to recommend that the split up version be avoided where possible.

With no guitars the roll they usually fill has been split between the bass and the violin, which proves an effective approach, especially concerning the violin which takes over the lead melody lines. There are many times when you could be easily forgiven thinking that there really are guitars used on the album, they are made up for so well that they really aren't missed. You realise the truth when you pay close attention to the fine details, which is also the point where you start to notice the little things that make Ancestors such an unusual sounding release.

The actual style of the album is best described as doom metal meets a kind of dark folk, with some Nordic influence such as in Breaker of Skulls, where there's a passage of music where it sounds like Fejd suddenly popped in for a jam session. There is also an element of black metal in the album, especially during the Svart movement of final track Breaker of Famine. The experimental nature of the band is obvious in their writing as much as their atypical guitarless instrumentation approach and is actually more all over the place in terms of chops and changes than the typical progressive metal album is, with each track having between three and six distinct parts. Compared to the previous album Disir Ancestors feels a lot more extreme, with many vocals being growled.

Völur's sound isn't always metallic and in fact it does take a little while before opener Breaker of Silence gets anywhere close to metal, but when the trio want to be heavy, they are really fucking heavy. No guitars required; the bass is all they need. Neither in fact is metal a requirement for the album to sound doomy. That slow bass line in Breaker of Silence provokes a feeling of unease and dread all by itself. The violin parts can also come across as really sinister sounding, especially during Breaker of Oaths. The rarer black metal parts sound downright evil. Völur have captured a lot of negative emotions in their music, but man is it good.

Experimental music like Ancestors is, by its very nature, always going to be considered hit and miss by different listeners. While some will no doubt find the album enthralling others may consider it a mess of thrown together ideas. I think that's just a fact of a life for this kind of group. I can't promise anyone reading this review that they'll enjoy it as much as I have, but I've come to consider Ancestors to offer a real esoteric kind of pleasure. It's an album for those who seek the unusual. If that's you, then check this out at once!

more than 2 years ago
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Nightfly wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Sounds interesting. A band i really enjoy with the same instrumentation are and Italian band called Le Maschere Di Clara. They too are pretty heavy and make a hell of a noise for a three piece with violin as the lead instrument. They can be found on Prog Archives http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7047