Rating: 8.8

Country: USA

Release Date: 2007

Record Label: Drakkar

Track list:
1.   Advocatus Diaboli   01:58   
2.   Divine Abortion   09:38
3.   Grey   11:24   
4.   Turning Purple in the Dark   04:40   
5.   Radiance   04:29   
6.   Void   15:54   

Total playing time   50:00

Band Website: Vrolok

Vrolok - Void (The Divine Abortion)

D. - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keys, Electronics
Kristján Gudmundsson - Percussion

• Corpse paint: check.
• Nerdy Lord of the Rings wizard-esque name: check.
• Harmonica intermezzo: check. ...?

While I wasn't familiar with Vrolok prior to hearing this, if this album is any indication of the quality of the rest of the band's discography, I've been missing out. It's a dense affair, but at its core, Void is best described as an exercise in the sort of tinny, industrialized lurching of recent Black Funeral laced with angelic leads that echo Bethlehem (the albums Dark Metal and Dictius Te Necare, respectively). Not always as depressive and bleak as those two reference points, when those majestic streaks of Bethlehemic buzz give way into an unlikely assbackwards groove, it's like what we know as rock or blues transcribed through the blasphemous utterances of some long-forgotten alien tongue, twisted beyond recognition and reason. These songs could very well be the hit singles of R'lyeh, and I don't just say that because Cthulhu's "hip" with you damn kids these days. When he's not shrieking as if he's being stabbed to death, the vocalist complements this formula with an amusingly villainous singing voice; in the title songs (yeah, there are two), for instance, he sounds like he has a top hat & twirly moustache and his free time is consumed by activities such as opposing bills that promote sound healthcare for cancerous children.

Dubious disclaimer: I hate scrutinizing minuscule elements of songs in these reviews. Song-by-song reviews (if you don't know what I'm talking about, visit metal-archives and find a random review) remind me of a scientist dissecting a new specimen, only to shove the dripping entrails into the face of the nearest biped while screaming "isn't she beautiful?" However, some of these songs beg for isolation, if only to illustrate the diversity of the final product, so I shall proceed to be a hypocrite and do so. The miserablist dirge "Grey" contains a sublime harp section of all things, while "Turning Purple in the Dark" is a perverted parody of a psalm, minimalistically utilizing silence in a way that endows potency to downtuned fret molestation occasionally squirming through the ether. Meanwhile, the clinical Godflesh groove that opens "Radiance" is promptly hijacked by a gauntlet of blasting, eventually twisting into some sort of neotribal melodic minor jam that feverishly heightens to a zenith of white, cackling Merzbow noise. If all that's not "out there" enough, the album ends with an excerpt from a soulful rendition of the 50's folk hit "Goodbye Irene." What the fuck? Is this what it's like to die? 

While I'm no USBM hater, I'll be the first to admit the realm of American black metal is a fetid mire of awkward posturing and creative poverty. (Ok, I guess that sort of does make me a USBM hater, but whatever.) And as weird as this album is, it must be confessed that the convoluted excess of it all (sans the distinctly Western bent) is little more than a nod to much of the modern French scene, and -- at core -- this is more of a solid black metal album than some sort of bold experiment. However, at the time of writing this, I'd go as far as to say I prefer Void to Deathspell Omega's Fas -- Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum. "Why's that then, my liege?" you may ask before cowering pitifully for speaking out of turn. I would then adjust my monocle and laugh contemptuously. Why? Pay close attention: because there's more effort invested into writing songs than pseudo-conceptual half-ideas. It's creative without trying too hard. Indeed, although this is pretty abstract, left-field stuff, it stands out from the likes of Blut Aus Nord and a host of other atonally harping post-post-post-post-post-black metal bands in that it's never so occupied with throwing shit and seeing what sticks that the dynamics are monopolized. On the contrary, despite Vrolok's unorthodox flirtation with ambience and psychedelic skree, the hollow pretense of "progression" seems to be the last thing on this nebulous sonic entity's mind. If progression is launching a space shuttle and stepping foot on a new planet, Vrolok is the evil genius locked in his basement among wires and bubbling test tubes, plotting to plague the world with an army of nuclear abominations. 

By synthesizing its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink mentality with a wealth of tonal flexibility and perverse hooks, Vrolok has crafted some groovily claustrophobic tones that manage to outweigh the adolescent playacting experimental black metal tends to entail. Fans of Godflesh, Bethlehem and Black Funeral yearning to tread more whimsically deranged terrain, it would behoove you to hear this.

May 7th, 2008