I’m new to this band, but after giving their second full-length a few listens, I fully intend to keep on top of their progress. Villainy (not to be confused with an Alternative Rock band from New Zealand), are a band from the Netherlands with a penchant for the dark, grim, heavy and ever-so-slightly experimental. This is certainly not your average black/death/thrash/doom metal band.
That being said, there are many familiar elements too: a dark and grisly guitar sound, gurgled, snarling vocals and an overall dark, dramatic atmosphere. I remember back when I was a spotty, awkward youth; if you were a fan of thrash metal (yes, that far back), and had a taste for the more experimental fringe of the music, you either liked Celtic Frost or you liked Voivod, not both. At least that is what I was told by other metal fans at the time… Villainy however, have either never heard this golden rule, or they have wisely chosen to ignore it. A lot of the great, retrogressive black/thrash elements on this release are a wonderful marriage between the atonal, sludgy nastiness of Celtic Frost and the weird, tripped out, jazzy thrashings of classic Voivod. Even if that was all that the band did, they do it so well and with such a surreal, psychedelic feeling that I would give this a high rating anyway.
However, where they really come into their own is when they bring in more experimental, dream-like aspects into their music. They take the hypnotic jazziness and sludgy grimness even further, and create great vast, dreamlike passages, which remind me a little of fevered nightmares I may have had after a night on the Edam. There are also some fantastic, crushing doom passages, like the beginning of `Jewel’. They suddenly switch from grinding blackened doom to jazzy eeriness, to black metal and so on, which some may find disconcerting on first listen (which I’m sure is intentional), but within the context of the album works very well and goes with the creepy, bizarre atmosphere of the entire set of songs.
There isn’t much more to add; Villainy continue to shock and surprise throughout the eleven tracks, showing great song writing skills, and an innate ability to create a surreal, strange and unsettling atmosphere with their thrash/black/doom/jazz/death skills. I for one, am hooked. Give them a listen and you might be too.
(8.5/10 Jon Butlin)
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