By Phil Cooper
Polish four-piece Voidfire originally formed with the intention of creating a purely instrumental outlet. After working through a few ideas, the decision was made to expand the sound and incorporate vocals too. In terms of concept their music seeks to showcase artistic inspiration through emotional suffering. With an idea such as that it’s easy to see why they’ve chosen to go down the black metal route. However, while this is the clear genre path for Voidfire, they’ve also sought to incorporate a heavy dose of melodic drive into their work. The result is the six tracks forming this debut album.
With an atmospheric opening courtesy of clean guitars, ‘Bladosc’ builds in both instrumental texture and volume to become a firm statement of intent. Voidfire have clearly got the genre specifics of black metal nailed down but their extra melodic input provides a new dynamic to the music. This delivery becomes the staple for the rest of the album. The curiously titled ‘-‘ provides possibly the best example of the Voidfire style after the opening track. With the harnessing of their raw aggression through the pummelling rhythm section and guttural vocals there’s an underpinning melody flowing throughout that hooks the listener in. As the track unfolds and the furious guitars layer up there’s more and more elements to the song writing that grabs the attention of the ears. With a slow breakdown and build up in the latter part of the track, the dynamic shift is well executed and enable the track to culminate in a powerful cadence.
With four of the six tracks easily clearing the seven-minute mark and two sailing past six minutes there could be the possibility for the music to lose momentum along the way. It runs the risk of getting bogged down in itself as variations on riffs and themes run out of steam. However, Voidfire comfortably navigate around this by writing highly engaging metal. They don’t stick to a formula in terms of just crushing the sound with relentless blast beats and blerghs with little thought of direction. On the contrary they’ve obviously put the hours in at the writing stage and have created tracks that offer more each time they’re listened to. Tracks such as ‘Kwiat Pustki’, ‘Sztorm’ and those already mentioned make good use of the track time. At no point did I find myself feeling that the music was overstretching the time. Each phrase was as important as the last and only added to build the powerful delivery.
With the mix of brutal percussive energy and defined melodies there could be the tendency for the latter to be lost to the former. However, the musicianship of the band executes everything with apparent ease and the rise and fall dynamics keep the sonic interest well through the course of the whole album. All elements and instrumentation are well balanced and delivered to a high technical standard. Melodic black metal is not a new concept. Many bands are looking to combine different elements to push the boundaries of their chosen genres and enjoy what they play. Like with any type of music however, there are bands that do it well and those that miss the mark. Happy to say that Voidfire with their debut album have firmly nailed it. Six tracks of heavy, powerful and highly engaging black metal laced with solid melodies.
- ‘Ogień Pustki’ is released tomorrow (Friday 28 February). You can get your copy HERE.
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