Veilburner release their sixth album in eight years, VLBRNR.
Veilburner is the duo Mephisto Deleterio (music and production) and Chrisom Infernium (vocals and lyrics), hailing from Pennsylvania. The first album under the Veilburner moniker came out in 2014, The Three Lightbearers, and since then new music from the band has hit the world stage every year or two without fail. The music they make crosses over many landscapes, notably death metal and black metal, and features layer and depth as defining and organizing characteristics.
The album has ten strong tracks, including two instrumentals. The record starts out in a suitably bizarre fashion with “VI (Vulgar Incantations).” Peculiar sounds stab at you, pushing and hooking, followed by a more recognizable structure created by guitar and rhythm elements. The vocals and vocalizations are sung, despite the unusual format of the lyrics themselves, which run in a sort of paragraph arrangement, rather than in stanzas. More fascinating is the impressive variation in vocal approach that pings from death metal to black metal to something else entirely and back again. It seems designed to provoke.
If you make it through the first song, then “Envexomous Hex” assails your senses from the jump and knocks your block off. When you get to “Interim Oblivion,” the illusion of peace is offered initially, but chaos quickly follows. Oddly, as the song progresses, it has nearly linear moments, with exceptional guitar work and a segment that is almost psychedelic. What we know by now is that trying to anticipate what will come next is a fool’s errand. The album is a living thing. Watch for “Burning the Veil,” because it is mesmerizing (and my favorite track of the set), and “None So Hideous” for its sheer musical brutality. I have heard most of Veilburner’s albums (all but one) and this is my favorite so far. Recommended.
VLBRNR is out on Friday, December 2nd through Transcending Obscurity Records. As expected, the label offers many forms, variants, and stunning merch to go along with the album’s release. Check out Bandcamp or Transcending Obscurity’s US store at the links below.
Links.
Bandcamp, https://veilburnerband.bandcamp.com/album/vlbrnr-dissonant-death-black-metal
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/veilburner
Transcending Obscurity Records, https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
© Wayne Edwards
Flying Fiddlesticks Music Blog 