Another week, another instalment of The Weirder End of the Press List, and this time we have the many and varied delights of Volcandra, with their second full-length album, The Way of Ancients. Incidentally, this is also an episode of Genre Roulette, the game where the genre tags outnumber the tracks and/or personnel, but more about that later on.
Volcandra describe their music as “high-fantasy inspired metal [that] runs the gamut of melodic black metal, melodeath and thrash’s most captivating sonic components”, which is an intriguing combination of flavours to say the least. Obviously shoehorning so many genres into a single album is not without risk – such things tend to be glorious, an unholy mess, or a confused, mediocre muddle that hasn’t figured out what it really wants to be when it grows up, and I’ve reviewed plenty in all three categories.
So where do Volcandra sit on that spectrum?
The opener, Birth of the Nephalem, immediately throws a curveball into the mix, with fuzzy, soaring, atmospheric post vibes that sound not unlike God Is An Astronaut having a faintly black metal moment. There’s a cinematic quality to this intro that also reminds me somewhat of the soundtracky end of Mogwai’s back catalogue, but it doesn’t last long, with the black/melodeath kicking in just past the minute mark. What follows is energetic melodeath with blackened traits, coupled with two vocal threads: one relatively clean black, one classic Cookie Monster™, and some excellent guitar work that sounds…vaguely proggy? Oh, and the melody that was laid down in the intro fades in and out, alternating with faster, deathier passages.
TL;DR: it’s kind of a lot guys, but I don’t hate it.
Fouled Sanctity leans more into old school thrash vibes, with a similar slightly posty refrain pulsing in and out over the same vocal tag team, and some rather unexpected bouncy melody that isn’t a million miles away from the heavier end of folk metal. Then Nemesis Confession goes all out atmospheric to start with, which is a bit jarring straight after the heaviness of Fouled Sanctity, but not in a bad way. Personally, I would’ve preferred a bit more of the opening, as the eerie scene it conjures isn’t really given time to shine before the onslaught of tight, brittle thrashy death crashes into view, interspersed with some more proggy flourishes.
Maiden of Anguish continues roughly where Nemesis Confession left off, only with more of a Cradle of Filth meets Children of Bodom kind of vibe, with appropriately complicated guitar interludes. Seven Tombs falls into what is becoming a somewhat familiar formula at this point: delicate, posty intro sets the scene beautifully, then the behemoth that is Volcandra’s blend of black, melodeath, thrash and god knows what else, comes screaming in at about the minute mark. It’s all very well done, but this is the point where I started getting a bit frustrated with it all – while I don’t dislike the main thrust of this album by any means, the softer, more atmospheric intros and interludes of this album are superbly done, and I really, really want more of them. But no cigar.
That said, Seven Tombs is actually pretty catchy, in a very blackened death (by way of some old-school thrash) sort of way, and The Blackened Temple skips the pretty intro entirely, launching straight into a squeally guitar riff that reminds me really strongly of another band that I can’t quite put my finger on right now. Not Even Death starts in much the same way, but is more black with some groove undertones (and some slightly jarring prog/classic rock style guitar work that I don’t hate, but it’s a touch unexpected) than The Blackened Temple’s deathy-thrash vibes, but let’s just say by this point I’ve got my head fairly securely round the template here. Even if Not Even Death goes out on a pretty instrumental note rather than starting on one, but that’s not so much a deviation from the formula as setting up the behemoth that is the title track, The Way of Ancients.
In closing, most of the wildly disparate threads woven through this album come together to create The Way of Ancients, a blackened melodeath epic with significant classic rock, power, prog, post and groove in the mix. There’s even some folk metal at play here, because what this album really needs in its last five minutes is another genre in the mix. The only major component missing is the thrashy heft that lurks under the skin of a lot of this album, and I can only assume that there…wasn’t room?
So in short: jack of all trades, but make it a metal album. And that’s not a bad thing, but it could potentially make it a bit polarising. The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work – it does – but more that there are enough genres bouncing around in here that most people will find something to love in here, but you might well find yourself wanting more of the bit/s you love. For instance, coming to this album as an Alcest/Maybeshewill/Mogwai/etc fan, I naturally gravitate towards the posty bits, and while I like the rest of the album, I keep coming back to the posty bits and wishing there were more of them. And what makes that particularly frustrating is that all the component parts of this album are so well done. It’s like Volcandra have just casually written the beginnings of superb post/thrash/black/whatever albums, then gone “nah”, cut them up and thrown them into the mixing bowl of an equally good blackened melodeath album.
And it really is a musical mixing bowl, because there’s so much going on here it’s actually quite impressive. In fact, there’s so much going on here that it kind of reminds me of the sort of around-the-world-in-80-dishes type buffet restaurant that most of us have encountered at some point or another (those of you familiar with Birmingham and the surrounding area: I may or may not be thinking of Jimmy Spices specifically here). Listening to The Way of Ancients is a little bit like being dragged around every counter in the place and loaded up with all manner of things from all over the world, but you had a bit of garlic bread on the way in that was amazing, and you’d really like some more of it. The samosas, tempura prawns, spring rolls, nachos and so on are great, but if they’d just let you go back and grab a full plate of that garlic bread…
As to where Volcandra sit on that spectrum: it works, but there’s part of me that wishes it didn’t? It’s a lovely album, but some of the component parts are almost too good to be shoehorned into a single album with so many other moving parts. I’ll give it the score it deserves, but please guys: make a post album at some point, yeah?
(8.5/10 Ellie)
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