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Artist: VOLKMAR
Album: Blessed Sins
Year: 2008
"Give Volkmar a chance!" With these words, I ended my
review of Volkmar's 'Overture Macabre' demo about a year
ago. Since then, lots of good things happened to this
band, and many people gave them a chance. First some
basics - Volkmar (from Australia) was born as a duo in
2006, releasing their 'Overture Macabre' demo short time
after. This demo was recieved well by various press all
over the world, and it resulted in a world tour moving
them from Chile to the USA, and ending with an exclusive
European show in The Netherlands. On that Dutch show,
organized by yours truly, they set their live
performance to high standards, and managed to get the
crowd moving. After this world tour, the Aussie 'Modern
Invasion Music' label picked them up, resulting in the
release of their debut full-lenght called 'Blessed Sins'.
'Eyes Sewn Shut' is a strong opener, with marching
programming and strong guitar- and basslines. The dark
vocal works, that are nearly spoken word at times, fit
the song excellently. 'Blessed Sin' is more electronic/wave
based, with dark harmonic bass- and vocal lines and a
more uptempo and vampiric sounding chorus. Overall the
track contains a dark atmosphere, and essential
basspicks. 'Avarice Avalon' is a nice uptempo track
again, more metal based, with strong programming and
sticky vocal lines. The guitars are straight to the
point, but get a bit more experimental in the little
intermezzo. 'Walk With Me' is a very easy going track,
that lays inbetween (industrial) metal and wave. It has
a very catchy approach, and although the vocal lines
seem sampled, the sing-a-long level is really high. 'An
Interlude In Hell' is an instrumental intermezzo,
blessed with ambient, wave and drone touches, that gets
followed by 'White Heaven'. This track is built on a
wicked programming line and distorted sampling works,
accompanied by a heavy bassline and dark guitars and
vocals. The track is maybe the darkest of the whole
record. 'No One Is Alive' opens with old school and
harsh EBM tunes, to overflow into an easy listening,
very old school based wave metal track. It sounds like a
time bomb ticking, and exploding into the chorus - and
there is again a very dark atmosphere all over the track.
'The Burning' continues to walk on the dark and old
school path. Musically, the track sounds NIN influenced,
but vocally wise the link gets closer to Type O Negative.
This results in a danceable and easy listening track,
that can be used for relaxing as well. 'Obsessed'
consists of marching beats, dark sampling works and
strong guitars. The song is mostly built on the
programming and a very heavy and droning bassline, and
the variation in the vocal lines fit the song
excellently. In my opinion, the best song on the release.
'Easiness Of The Mind' is an ambient influenced, spoken
word outro, followed by the final track on the release -
called 'Dominion In Dominance'. Its an excellent final
track of this release, that mixes their already
mentioned influences into an old school sounding and
easy listening track once again, with strong driven
guitars and wicked programming and vocal lines.
The people who have the 'Overture Macabre' demo hiding
in their CD collection might have recognised the
following track titles already: 'Eyes Sewn Shut', 'Walk
With Me', 'White Heaven' and 'Easiness Of The Mind'.
Where many bands just use their older tracks untouched
for a full-lenght (or just with a better production),
Volkmar is of a different kind. And the essential part
of this all - the changes aren't just changes, but major
improvements. The little intermezzo on 'Eyes Sewn Shut'
fits the song better, and as well the slightly changes
in the programming are effective. As well on 'Walk With
Me', there are some small changes in the programming,
and they sampled most of the vocal lines, which is
wellfitting to both the song structure as the lyrics.
The biggest improvements has been made on the new
programming line on 'White Heaven', and as well very
small changes to 'Easiness of the Mind' are noticable.
For the people who think it's a pity that 'Journey Below'
didn't made it to the album, I'll hand over this little
hint: I never review hidden tracks on albums... And now
that we're talking about hidden stuff - you'll as well
find a nice video for 'Eyes Sewn Shut' as a bonus on
this release!
Volkmar didn't only showed progression on their older
tracks, as well the new tracks are very decently built.
If you compare each track to the other ones, it also
shows an essential amount of variation, without losing
the dark approach and atmosphere that captures the whole
record. 'Blessed Sins' is an essential release for
people that are into the darker regions of music, as
well fans of old school stuff like The Sisters of Mercy
and Nine Inch Nails, and proves that it's able to
compete with more modern and bigger names like Moonspell,
Type O Negative, The Vision Bleak and Division Alpha.
Don't let this one slip through your fingers!
Vote: 98 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
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01. Eyes Sewn Shut
02. Blessed Sin
03. Avarice Avalon
04. Walk With Me
05. An Interlude In Hell
06. White Heaven
07. No One Is Alive
08. The Burning
09. Obsessed
10. Easiness Of The Mind
11. Dominion In
Dominance |
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