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Artist: VOLKMAR
Album: Overture Macabre
Year: 2006
Volkmar from Australia is another brand new name on the
industrialized metal webzine. This duo (on this demo CD,
in fact this band exists of three people now) says to
have very wide influences from the Sisters of Mercy to
Immortal and from Ministry to Slayer. Since Australia
isn’t really known by me for it’s industrial metal scene,
this five track demo wokes up quite some curiousity
already. ‘Overture Macabre’ wass released in 2006.
‘Eyes Sewn Shut’ is the first track of this album. It
already etalages the wide influences of this band.
Elements of Bathory, Nine Inch Nails and more modern
stuff like Fear Factory are clearly hearable here and
there, which results in a good, dark mix of different
styles. ‘Walk With Me’ is a decent old school track,
with a mixture of dark and enlightening vocal works and
a bouncing guitar line. The chorus has a certain amount
of catchyness, which is always a good thing with music
like this. ‘Journey Below’ contains some surprisingly
medieval and folk elements, which are brought in the
song in a very dark way. Although I am not really a fan
of medieval and folk stuff, I must say that I like this
song, for it’s darkness and originality. ‘White Heaven’
is in my opinion the best track of the record. It’s
clearly the most metal track, and the mix between the
sampling and the distortion on the guitars seem perfect.
The vocal lines are recogniseable all over the track,
and just like ‘Walk With Me’ the chorus sticks in your
head with ease. ‘Uneasyness of the Mind’ is the last
track of the album, which happened to be an
ambient/classical music influenced outro.
Lots of nice words indeed, but also a few points of
critic. Some of the higher clean vocals sound a little
unfitting here and there, and the programming has in
‘Journey Below’ not enough variation in my opinion. But,
keeping in mind that this is only just the debut demo of
this young band, I forgive them these small points. One
thing I do hope is that their next demo will have a
cleaner production. Of course, raw productions are nice,
specially with distortion guitars like this, but in my
opinion this takes away the synth lines too much. With a
better production and some small improvements, I think
this band is capable of overruling this quite impressive
demo even a little more. Fans of old school stuff like
Nine Inch Nails, The Sisters of Mercy and Fields of the
Nephilm will definitely appreciate this new band, as
well fans of more ‘newer’ gothic rock/metal bands like
Moonspell for example. Give Volkmar a chance!
Vote: 85 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
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01. Eyes Sewn Shut
02. Walk With Me
03. Journey Below
04. White Heaven
05. Uneasyness of the
Mind |
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