Verdrängung

Bracingly fast melodic black metal bounds forth following a downbeat piano intro for this debut album from Voak, a newly formed Greek black metal outfit. Combining elements of hardcore punk, frantic black metal, and post punk into a tight, dense, yet remarkably uncluttered picture of clear and crisp extreme metal. Despite the back to basics setup, ‘Verdrängung’ is replete with musical reference points and interesting little segues.

The production is clear and crisp, adopting a balance between the cold prerequisites of black metal with a warmer, more intimate aesthetic fitting for the marked punk influences lurking behind these tracks. Drums and guitars are perhaps the most unadorned element on here, offering a professional polish whilst remaining almost completely free of heavy handed atmospheric flourish. Bass is fully audible beneath the mix, at times acting as the lead instrument, offering galloping riffs to bolster the fraught energy that stretches across this brief album. Vocals – in keeping with the punk ethos – blend hardcore urgency with black metal mysticism to create a potent and emotive mix of rousing calls to action.

Other instruments – including pianos and violins – crop up sparingly to expand the timbral range of the album, but they remain in keeping with the organic, realist philosophy of this music, with no artificial symphonics deployed to supplement the guitars.

And this really sums up the experience of ‘Verdrängung’. A bare bones presentation bent on achieving a degree of authenticity and sincerity, but directing this impetus through the choices regarding presentation and aesthetics, all of which are deliberately self-limited. But the music itself is a nutritionally rich array, seeing the marriage of differing yet complementary riff traditions via black metal, melodic punk, post punk, and folk. All of which suit the urgent protest music of Voak down to a tee.

Originally published at Hate Meditations