Arson Cafe: Vosbúð - Heklugjá Review

Sunday, January 08, 2023

Vosbúð - Heklugjá Review

Sometimes an album’s formed perception benefits from the surroundings of the listener, or the conditions of the listening experience. Being the first (at least, to my knowledge) band to introduce the term “volcanic black metal”, Vosbúð from Iceland deliver their / his first full length album Heklugjá after a vigorous but potentially glossed over EP in 2019, setting the mark in the project’s journey for good.

Thematics are described perfectly by the band’s self-genre assertion, and don’t let your mind rush to conclusions when it comes to the music, especially when knowing their roots. Heklugjá takes a stand for atmospheric black metal with dusty production, partially originating from the United States but with a firm personal touch and plenty of creative material in its long compositions. That is also the only drawback of the record, as its lengthy duration sometimes feels unnecessary, especially in moments when the tracks get a bit repetitive, not confident enough to affix the next idea.

Fortunately, this is mostly clear only through the third and fourth piece, where almost exhilarated melodies lay hints of modern / post-black metal bands from the US and despite that, the flow of the album is at least maintained through this rocky path. A couple of songs are really long and packed with material, especially the opener “Myndhöggvari lífsins og dauðans” at 17 minutes, and the closing piece “Heklugjá” at the same length. Vosbúð’s ingenuity is boastful in these pieces and the album has potent messages as a whole, depicting a rather ambitious atmospheric black metal release that only slightly shakes due to it’s own weight.

One hour might be too much to not build the urge to fast forward a bit, however Vosbúð do now shy away from epicness or high quality guitar lines, wonderful bass sound and a production to go along with its subject. There is no one fitting more to speak of volcanoes than an Icelandic band, and Heklugjá is a fine debut, imperfect at some intricacies and yet melded with passion.

DAMAGE: [3.25/5]

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Reckoning

From all the hills came screams. A piece of sky beside the crescent sun was detaching. It was a loosened circle of evening sky, suddenly lighted from the back. It was an abrupt black body out of nowhere; it was a flat disk; it was almost over the sun. That is when there were screams. At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover. The hatch in the brain slammed. Abruptly it was dark night, on the land and in the sky. In the night sky was a tiny ring of light. The hole where the sun belongs is very small. A thin ring of light marked its place. There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were light-years distant, forgetful of almost everything.