AN NCS PREMIERE: VOHA — “RAVEN CRY”

A great deal of music across all genres is made in homage to what has come before it. It is the affection for something heard that provides the inspiration for something new. Often, this leads to mere mimicry at first, though sometimes it provides the foundation for subsequent originality. Sometimes, and more rarely, the homage is so striking, so eye-opening, that you almost forget where the inspiration came from, and we have an example of that today.

The young Croatian artist behind the black metal band Voha has made clear that in the making of Voha‘s new album Majestic Nightsky Symphonies, he drew inspiration from Dimmu Borgir as an important influence, but also was driven by inspiration from the likes of Emperor, Odium, Nokturnal Mortum, Obtained Enslavement, Sacramentum, Old Man’s Child, Vinterland, and Gehenna.

Creating symphonic black metal was the main goal, but Voha also used the album to express his love of fantasy tales, and so arranged it as a story of a Dark Lord and the Sorcerer who “helps him to regain the power of evil to forge new atrocity”.

The song we’re presenting from the album today is “Raven Cry“, as you might guess from the first sounds you’ll hear in it. And yes, it includes symphonic elements, but they’re far from “cheesy”. They aid in the creation of a song that’s tremendously dramatic and frighteningly dire, but also becomes both heart-broken and fierce in the fervency of the dark desires it channels.

The connection between the album’s cover art and the sensations in the song is a strong one. The music itself creates dramatic visions of vast storms in the sky and the bleak looming grandeur of a dreadful mountain fortress lit by lightning.

The riffing vividly swirls but the chords move in slow waves, creating sensations of turmoil and torment above a momentous bass that throbs like a draconic pulse far beneath the earth’s surface and rumbles like thunder. The drums erupt in feverish bursts, and the cymbals crack like lightning flashes, while the vocals split the skies with wretched howls and terrorizing screams. Symphonic waves also flow forward, carrying both melancholy and wonder through their expansive crests and troughs.

The song engulfs the senses from beginning to end, but new accents and facets surface as it moves forward. The lead guitar vibrantly trills, channeling piercing feelings of misery and yearning; the bass muses like an eager soul; the drums boom but also shift into rocking beats as the riffing drives with a new pulse; keyboards ring like the dance of an ethereal flute. But the vocals continue to scar the senses, like the echoing screams of a vampire within a crypt.

There’s no mistaking the darkness in the song, but it’s also a moving and electrifying experience. Easy to get swept away by it.

The song is all the more impressive when you understand that the person (Fran) who made it is only 21 years old, and that he did everything — performing the vocals, guitars, bass, and synths, programming the drums, and even doing the mixing and mastering. He says he’s working to get better, but he’s obviously already very good.

Here’s what he’s told us about the song you just heard:

This tune begins with sound of raven which is for me personally the voice of wisdom and knowledge that the king himself regains after coming back to the throne, I used a lot of inspirations from Odium where they also have a black knight/king that sits on a throne and watches the universe itself. For me that is a big inspiration because I tried to picture that type of king, lonely but almighty. He hears the voice of the raven, and its voice guides the count to immeasurable power.

Fran has also explained that while fantasy elements provide the conceptual themes, the album also includes “personal themes that follow topics about the meaning of death, love, and life”, and that it’s also “imbued with love towards nature and the beautiful night sky itself”.

Majestic Nightsky Symphonies will be released by Void Wanderer Productions and War Productions on a date to be announced, in a CD edition. Pre-orders will be available at the locations linked below.

VOID WANDERER:
https://voidwanderer.com/
https://voidwandererproductions.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/voidwandererprod

WAR PRODUCTIONS:
https://warproductions.bandcamp.com
https://war-productions.org/

VOHA:
https://voha1.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/voha.official/