Written: 11th April 2024
Formed a little over ten years ago in Edinburgh, Dvne have steadily built a loyal following and Victor Vicart appears very comfortable with the band’s progression in recent years. “It wasn’t until 2017 that it started feeling like a band with a mission behind it, to go on tour, grow, do better shows and do what we want to do creatively. We have fans now - real fans, it’s awesome! - but we still feel like a young band. A bit more mature maybe, but I don’t feel ten years older!” Dvne operate in a domain incorporating sludge metal, progressive metal and post-metal. Their second album Etemen Ænka - released on Metal Blade Records - was extremely well received, leading to the band embarking on UK and European headline tours and playing at renowned festivals such as Hellfest, ArcTanGent, Desertfest, Damnation and Resurrection.
From the beginning, it is apparent that Dvne are eager to further develop their sound and while their continued excellent use of vast cinematic soundscapes is both spellbinding and resplendent, there is undoubtedly increased expediency within some of the material – Voidkind is almost twenty minutes shorter than the band’s previous album. Vicart explains this approach, “So when we started playing Etemen Ænka songs live, we started thinking ‘hmm, what’s missing? What don’t we have?’ We talked about immediacy; we wanted some songs that were straighter, with less of the long build-ups. We still have the big nine-minute songs, but now we also have these more concise songs that still feel like us.”
Voidkind, which continues Dvne’s overarching narrative - following a religious group through the generation line from the beginning to its end – begins with Summa Blasphemia (Latin for Highest Blasphemy) which hurls the listener into the band’s enticing world from the first moments. Perfectly illustrating Vicart’s aim for immediacy, the album opens with just a few seconds of mysterious synths before guitars and drums detonate along with the first lyrics of the album. Cremated scrolls / Stripped of lore / Incinerate fealty / In fervent ire / Grey ashes / Felled atheneum / Cleansed of heresy / Grey ashes, grey ashes fall. Telling the story of the fall and destruction of a great city, Summa Blasphemia wastes no time in proving just how devastatingly colossal their sound can be. Such is the immensity of the sound, it feels as though the doomed city’s buildings are falling around us.
Elenora, the first of several tracks to break the seven-minute mark, begins with an alluring rapid guitar ostinato above which soaring clean vocals break through. Establishing itself more steadily than the opening track, Elenora navigates through several different musical sections showing Dvne’s increasing ability to live within the sphere that bands such as Mastodon have mastered so effectively. As the growling vocals take over, the riffs stomp with gargantuan force. For my thirst you are water / For the dark, pyre / Your embrace I shall seek / Your chains for warmth. However, Dvne are never bludgeoning simply for the sake of it and a quieter but no less intense central section allows the band to cast an increasingly hypnotic net over the listener. It proves all the more effective when the voluminous percussion and prodigious vocals return at the end of the song. Within two songs, Dvne display the scope of their ambition and Victor admits the band felt pressure for this album to outdo its widely acclaimed predecessor, but not from label, media or fans: “It’s pressure we put on ourselves, rather than what people expect from us. We felt pressure for Etemen Ænka because it was our first album for a big label and more people would be following us. But the difference here - and the difficult thing - was that we wanted to do something we would be equally happy with, but with a different angle and flavour.”
Reaching For Telos erupts from the first second echoing the burning zeal of the high priest’s sermon it portrays. It is a wonderful demonstration of the significant layering in Dvne’s music. Lyrically and musically, Reliquary (referring to a receptacle for religious artefacts) continues to ramp up the tension. Full of brutal riffs, raging vocals and the blistering bass of Allan Patterson, it is absorbing and ardent throughout. Dudley Tait’s drumming during the song allows him to fully demonstrate the range of his technique from a rampaging opening to the more groove driven final section. With lyrics ranging from execution to resilience of persecution, Reliquary is unsettling and unrelenting. Apostates gather / Communion / A foetid assembly / Nauseous faith / Judged guilty / Drawn and quartered / Left to rot. Victor reveals one book has been particularly impactful on the band's thought process: 1989 novel Hyperion by Dan Simmonds. “It’s a very dark sci-fi book with loads of interesting parts, so you can go really prog with it, but you can also go more violent and animalistic.” More stimulating hallmarks include video game Dark Souls, and the Japanese manga series that inspired it, Berserk: “It’s a very cool, violent, psychedelic, mediaeval dark fantasy,” explains Victor. “We wanted to have these kinds of visuals and aesthetics on this album, in this mix-up of things. Even without the vocals we wanted to evoke something, different places and spaces, and take the listener on a journey.”
A short but cryptically nuanced track, Path of Dust contains the most delicate vocals of the album and although the feeling of something unsettling approaching is never far away, there are elements of hope within it and the track into which it directly leads, Sarmatæ. With subtle Middle Eastern influences, Sarmatæ is an epic tale of nomadic travel and a wish to connect to a higher power. Great columns, a thundering flock / Marching through shifting lands / The perennial transit / Led by oneiric command / Cast your tale into the fire / Walk until the valleys unfold / Under clouds, hues of obsession / That cross the endless sky. Occasionally on Voidkind, when the band are playing at full power, such as during moments of Sarmatæ, the clean vocals appear to struggle to find their place amongst such majestic riff building but this a minor concern within the overall formation of the album as a whole. There is something impressively grandiose, yet never arrogant, about the way that Dvne structure their arrangements and no instrument ever threatens to engulf any other. Vicart states, “We wanted very distinct left and right guitars, and punchier drums and bass, which would transcribe better live. And the synths needed to be clearer; it’s very easy to put five guitars on each side, loads of different vocals and keys, but then you end up watching a band with an album you really like, and the songs sound nothing like the record. That’s what we wanted to avoid. As soon as the song starts, we want people to immediately recognise the riff.”
Path of Ether is a gloriously ethereal and ambient instrumental that gives the listener the first chance for true moments of reflection on the album thus far. Dvne immediately counteract this with one of the heaviest sections on Voidkind: the opening of Abode of the Perfect Soul. Beginning with a demonically hellish roar - Procession surging – rapidly altering riffs submerge us with their shifting power. Nowhere are Dvne’s range of influences and affection for a range of sub-genres more represented than on Abode of the Perfect Soul. Multi-faceted, the song ranges from heavy sludge, to intricate progressive metal to post-metal flourishes. While the band have been keen to bring the aforementioned immediacy to their music, it is pleasing to note that they have not sacrificed the opportunity to still allow songs to twist and spiral across sounds and ideas to develop organically, drawing out memorable motifs. Plērōma, named after a concept that has appeared in Gnosticism, continues this trend as the narrative takes a transformative turn. Generations journey reach the hallowed end / Suspended water, plasma of the sacrament / The black key of the veil / The black path of water bridges transcendency /Corporeal constraints / Corporeal shedding. The religious followers consume the essence of their god and reach a new perception of being.
Plērōma begins with steadily swelling synths (new member Maxime Keller has made a significant impact on the band) and guitars which lead into a track with clean vocals during the first half. Throughout this part of track, there is a focus on melody and the vocals shine more tangibly. After a crunching central section with monumental rumbles - Seeing through hidden screens / Woven branches undulate / Weaves of crystal replicate – Dvne produce a beautifully alluring piece of post-metal during the final two minutes of the song.
Voidkind concludes with the almost ten-minute Cobalt Sun Necropolis, a sprawling ever-changing epic that will send fans of the band into delirium. On this final song, Dvne fully lift some of their self-enforced restrictions. Combining every musical ingredient that the band have drawn on thus far, it is a Brobdingnagian conclusion to the album, during which every member has time to shine. Narratively, there is a mystical, apocalyptic and subsequently cyclical nature to the lyrics. It explores the themes of collective existence and the profound connection between all beings. In Cobalt Sun Necropolis, death holds a transformative power and acts as the crucible of change. Ending the song, each instrument is at the peak of its rage and as the band coalesce into a swarm of blistering static, the silence that follows signifies the possibility of beginning again.
With Voidkind, Dvne have stepped up once again from the significant success of their previous work. With influences ranging from Tool, Mastodon, Opeth and Neurosis to the Boards of Canada, the quintet have nurtured their developing sound and produced an expansive but exquisitely coherent album. The band demand a lot from the listener and multiple listens are essential to fully unlock everything that they have subtly and painstakingly constructed both musically and lyrically. For fans willing to scale the heights for which Dvne are aiming, they will be richly rewarded indeed. Join the religion….
Voidkind is released on 19th April 2024