Dolorian - Voidwards
Avantgarde
2006
Dolorian's Voidwards was one of my top 10 metal albums last year. Every time I hear the record, it bowls me over with its depth, sophistication, and listenability. Frankly, I don't understand why it wasn't in more top 10's. Lack of distribution must be part of the reason; it's hardly available in the US. Your best bet, aside from Amazon outside the US, is Avantgarde's webshop, sound-cave.com.
Stylistically, Dolorian would be considered doom metal. However, this Finnish band distinguishes itself with heavy reliance on clean tones. These are some of the best clean tones I've ever heard, up there with Anathema's The Silent Enigma or Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtrack. Imagine drops of water splashing into a pool, causing circular ripples in slow motion. These clean tones are like that.
When dirty tones kick in, then, they mean something. This is a change from the heavy-handed Sabbath-isms common in doom metal. As the band's website shows, it's all about depth, to the point of mysticism (the lyrics recall the late, great Yob). The vocals often come in a whisper, adding to the esoteric feeling. With its dark, spacious reverbs, this album is like exploring caves in one's mind.
Voidwards has some of the deepest sounds I've ever heard. If you're into mysterious, hypnotic head spaces, by all means track down this disc. It comes in a gorgeous digipak with elegant, abstract artwork.
Labels: clee, doom metal, finland
5 Comments:
This is an excellent record in my opinion, and I find the recent text on their website fitting. Why ask Dolorian about Eurovision in the first place? The way I see it, if a band really wants questions answered, it should answer its own questions and put them on their website or such as a statement and be done with the idiotic metal marketing and press. Maybe this lack of exposure will bring about less sales... so what. Bands like Dolorian do not make their music because it'll sell well.
Yes, asking a band like Dolorian about Eurovision is a real headscratcher. However, as someone who interviews bands, I think it's possible to do a good interview and find out information that the band may not reveal on its own. As Dolorian said, you just have to be in tune with your interview subjects and their work.
Yes, a real fan of the band might get very interesting dialogue going.
But one has to ask, why would I want to know any more about a band than what the band originally intends to tell me? I love my favourite bands as much as the next person and have researched their histories to great extents, but in retrospect, all I needed to know was in the music, the aesthetics and the choice words by the band itself.
It's exactly because heavy metal interviews are so innessential they have deteriorated to crap press publicity for 'the new record'.
I've read your interviews, you're doing well even when you're subversive (like asking Cannibal Corpse about being humourous, a topic on which they've drastically revised their answer after metal became 'ironic cool' recently) but in the end they're really beside the point in my opinion.
I enjoy the method by Finnish esoteric metal band AARNI, who answer their own questions, and also ask readers to send in questions for answering. Interviewing, as they say is far too serious a matter to be left to the hands of metal press journalists :P
Well, you're right in that interviews that don't go beyond mere publicity aren't useful or informative. However, if a band tells you zero, or is not articulate on its own (not everyone has a nice website like Dolorian's), then naturally people would be curious to know more. I don't hold metal bands to a different standard than the rest of the world. If a phenomena interests me, than a media interview on it will interest me.
Ideally, metal journalists are fans of the music, so interviews aren't that different from your Aarni case. When I interviewed Cannibal Corpse, I was just asking questions about what I was curious. Interviews are two-way streets. People can find out about the band, and the band can get publicity. In cases where I like the band, I don't mind supporting them that way.
Hey !!
t invito a conoser mi blofg de Gothic & Doom Metal!!
EnJoy It!!
http://undegroundchazz.blogspot.com/
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