Reviewed - 09/05/05
SoulSaviour
[Vendlus Records]
Admittedly, I am a sucker for concept albums. Conceptual bands go even farther to win my love; I won't proclaim a bad album good solely based on such aspects, but as a literary-minded person, I tend to develop more of an emotional attachment to bands and artists that sacrifice 'song' in the name of 'album.' So when I discovered that V:28's cyber metal "SoulSaviour" was the second part of a trilogy, even though I had already decided that this was a solid release, I felt my enjoyment of an already good album increase substantially.
V:28 (certainly one of the stranger band names I have come across) consists of three Norwegians covering guitars, vocals, and bass. In the style of most cyber metal, there is no drummer. Nevertheless, like most cyber metal bands, the music does not suffer from the lack of a human percussionist. I've probably said this before (and forgive me for being repetitive), but cyber metal is the one subgenre of extreme metal for which electronic drums makes no negative difference. If anything, it allows for an increased flexibility in melding the sounds of brutal metal and inhuman electronica.
And V:28 certainly feature plenty of both elements. For the most part, this is a contemporary black metal album: slow melodies, distorted guitars, blasting, double bass, harsh vocals… you get the picture. There is certainly some Enslaved influence here, as well as a touch of Dimmu Borgir and even some Emperor at times. Eddie Risdal (the aforementioned vocalist) growls somewhere around the middle of the range of extreme metal vocalists, neither especially guttural nor especially shrieking. And Kristoffer Oustad (the other half of V:28's main songwriting duo) boasts some mighty fine picking, complete with self-harmonized black metal fuzz and rhythmic crunch.
Intermingled amongst the sonic atrocities of black metal are the synthetic sounds of techno and electronica – artificial beats, ambient melodic soundscapes, and numerous sound bytes and audio clips. Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles draws a comparison to the ambience of many a Cold Meat Industry artist; I probably wouldn't go that far, but there is definitely enough simulated sound here to satisfy any cyber metal or industrial fan.
As mentioned earlier, "SoulSaviour" is the second of a trilogy of albums. In fact, this album's tracks (on the packaging, not the disc) begin with eleven, and the ten tracks on V:28's prior album "NonAnthropogenic" are visible above the nine tracks on the back of the "SoulSaviour" packaging, albeit in a corroded, almost illegible state. Furthermore, blank track numbers up to 28 continue below "Dead Men's Choir," leading me to assume that V:28 will be releasing a total of 28 tracks spread amongst their cyber metal trilogy.
It's this sort of meta-album continuity that makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
Despite such awe-inspiring conceptual unification, "SoulSaviour" is not the greatest metal album released this year. It probably won't even end up on this year's top ten, unfortunately. Regardless of a strong inter-album concept and my own admitted soft spot for cyber metal, V:28 just aren't catchy or memorable enough to stand out amongst the numerous stellar metal releases gracing store shelves and CD racks everywhere. Truth be told, they barely hold a candle to the likes of ShadowCast or the Kovenant. There is just not enough memorability here... I enjoy listening to "SoulSaviour" as the disc plays, but even a few hours afterwards I am hard-pressed to remember any melodies or vocal lines. Moreover, the uniqueness of V:28's music is almost too vague to be worth mentioning; they sound good, but it takes a great deal of effort to get more specific than that.
Nonetheless, "SoulSaviour" is a solid cyber metal album (my description, not theirs), and I would be surprised if I don't end up with "NonAnthropogenic" and the next V:28 album one of these days. Fans of more industrial-oriented cyber metal bands like …and Oceans will certainly find V:28 to be to their liking. Just don't expect the metal album to end all metal albums.
[Vendlus Records]
Admittedly, I am a sucker for concept albums. Conceptual bands go even farther to win my love; I won't proclaim a bad album good solely based on such aspects, but as a literary-minded person, I tend to develop more of an emotional attachment to bands and artists that sacrifice 'song' in the name of 'album.' So when I discovered that V:28's cyber metal "SoulSaviour" was the second part of a trilogy, even though I had already decided that this was a solid release, I felt my enjoyment of an already good album increase substantially.
V:28 (certainly one of the stranger band names I have come across) consists of three Norwegians covering guitars, vocals, and bass. In the style of most cyber metal, there is no drummer. Nevertheless, like most cyber metal bands, the music does not suffer from the lack of a human percussionist. I've probably said this before (and forgive me for being repetitive), but cyber metal is the one subgenre of extreme metal for which electronic drums makes no negative difference. If anything, it allows for an increased flexibility in melding the sounds of brutal metal and inhuman electronica.
And V:28 certainly feature plenty of both elements. For the most part, this is a contemporary black metal album: slow melodies, distorted guitars, blasting, double bass, harsh vocals… you get the picture. There is certainly some Enslaved influence here, as well as a touch of Dimmu Borgir and even some Emperor at times. Eddie Risdal (the aforementioned vocalist) growls somewhere around the middle of the range of extreme metal vocalists, neither especially guttural nor especially shrieking. And Kristoffer Oustad (the other half of V:28's main songwriting duo) boasts some mighty fine picking, complete with self-harmonized black metal fuzz and rhythmic crunch.
Intermingled amongst the sonic atrocities of black metal are the synthetic sounds of techno and electronica – artificial beats, ambient melodic soundscapes, and numerous sound bytes and audio clips. Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles draws a comparison to the ambience of many a Cold Meat Industry artist; I probably wouldn't go that far, but there is definitely enough simulated sound here to satisfy any cyber metal or industrial fan.
As mentioned earlier, "SoulSaviour" is the second of a trilogy of albums. In fact, this album's tracks (on the packaging, not the disc) begin with eleven, and the ten tracks on V:28's prior album "NonAnthropogenic" are visible above the nine tracks on the back of the "SoulSaviour" packaging, albeit in a corroded, almost illegible state. Furthermore, blank track numbers up to 28 continue below "Dead Men's Choir," leading me to assume that V:28 will be releasing a total of 28 tracks spread amongst their cyber metal trilogy.
It's this sort of meta-album continuity that makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.
Despite such awe-inspiring conceptual unification, "SoulSaviour" is not the greatest metal album released this year. It probably won't even end up on this year's top ten, unfortunately. Regardless of a strong inter-album concept and my own admitted soft spot for cyber metal, V:28 just aren't catchy or memorable enough to stand out amongst the numerous stellar metal releases gracing store shelves and CD racks everywhere. Truth be told, they barely hold a candle to the likes of ShadowCast or the Kovenant. There is just not enough memorability here... I enjoy listening to "SoulSaviour" as the disc plays, but even a few hours afterwards I am hard-pressed to remember any melodies or vocal lines. Moreover, the uniqueness of V:28's music is almost too vague to be worth mentioning; they sound good, but it takes a great deal of effort to get more specific than that.
Nonetheless, "SoulSaviour" is a solid cyber metal album (my description, not theirs), and I would be surprised if I don't end up with "NonAnthropogenic" and the next V:28 album one of these days. Fans of more industrial-oriented cyber metal bands like …and Oceans will certainly find V:28 to be to their liking. Just don't expect the metal album to end all metal albums.
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Tracklist:
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| Rating: 8.5/10 | |
| Release Date: 2005 | |
| Length: 40:20 | |
| Review By: F. Justin Ossmann | |
| Total Reviews: (1) | |
| Bands Website: Go Here | |
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