Vosbúð – Heklugjá – HeavyPop.at

by Oliver
on January 18, 2023
in Album

„Heklugjá is the climax of Volcanic Black Metal: Hail Nature!‘ Suspectedly cut off from the rest of Iceland’s incestuous cooking scene Vosbúd on Crochet gap four years following Almannagjá, her own soup for the second time – including a hair that can hardly be ignored.

Mastermind and instrumental sole ruler Rune Lúðvíksson and his assistant on the microphone Eyjafjallajökull deliver in the eighteen-minute opener Sculptor of Life and Death an adequate moral picture of the conditions. Vosbúð crank harshly chanting over anthem-like tremolo melody with a latent shanty vibe, even swaying over the course (but never as explicitly as here) over blissfully drunken Paegan motifs in rustic, Viking-like chants, while the gas pedal is heroically pressed in different tempi , acoustic retreats only serve as launchpads for short solos and solemnly reveling, catchy driving motifs that settle into the organ-like groundwork and show a wonderful jam spirit, before the duo also teaches the songwriting a few lengths in the sacred choir with ever new arcs of tension .
Only: the production is neither flesh nor fish, wants to sound clean and powerful as well as modern without Lo-Fi thoughts, but comes across as flat-chested and cheap – alone how uninspired lifeless the dull bass sounds on a latently amateurish level – and prevents in so many places , that you throw yourself enthusiastically into the fundamentally great (also well-performed) songs and let yourself be carried away. Unfortunately, this circumstance becomes the great apple of discord Crochet gap stay.

Lava And Passion slows down the tempo melancholy over long stretches – which only shows the production weaknesses of the record even more exuberantly, although the melancholic musings of the band are excellent in themselves. Even if the number later picks up properly, it doesn’t develop the potentially possible triumphant drama: the sound promotes the ambitions of Crochet gap not, can not with the ideas, goals or aesthetics of Vosbúd keep up, but actually undermines all these aspects. So when the Icelanders tame the disso edge in a pretty cool way, it seems more foam-dampened than a crushing feat of strength.
The staging succeeds better in the middle piece Aska Victoriousan intermezzo tending towards the absurd indie rock vibe, its peaceful optimism and the spirit of optimism into the cymbal wriggling Fog-tendencies are celebrated with an endorphin-laden melody and can at most be accused of being ended too abruptly. How wonderful – and above all: wonderfully idiosyncratic – Vosbúd but can be.

You do get used to the circumstances over the course of the record, but a latent frustration also resonates during the final 28 minutes of the last two song monoliths.
Eldorgía gets in so unnecessarily muddy (gives away blast beats, some of which seem like they came out of a cardboard box) in order to celebrate his artistically outdated longing in sad beauty, to captivate in an exemplary way in an entertaining and entertaining way. And the title song is only the first part of its stretch a somewhat redundant decline of the band’s already known strengths at this point – until the closer, at the latest halfway through its playing time, becomes a single, never-ending high-altitude flight, with one laughing and one crying Eye the status quo of Crochet gap determined: Vosbúd have created a (very) good second effort, which really should have been an outstanding highlight from the Icelandic island black metal scene!

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