DVNE – VOIDKIND

(Andy Synn has nothing but praise for progressive Post-Metal messiahs Dvne on their new album)

Much like the legend of the Lisan ‘al gaib, Dvne‘s success seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.

After all, both their debut full-length (which remains, to this day, one of my all-time favourite albums) and its bigger, bolder – and, dare I say, almost Villeneuv-ian – sequel demonstrated that the band were one of the brightest stars in the UK Metal scene, and now it’s time for their third album to seal the proverbial deal.

Interestingly enough – and I say this as someone who has read almost every single Dune book written (not just the Frank Herbert originals, but also the sequels, prequels, and spin-offs written by his son and others) – Dvne‘s career maps surprisingly well onto that of Herbert himself.

If you consider Asheran to be the band’s equivalent of their original namesake – a wild burst of creativity and ambition which seems to positively leap off the page/out of the speakers – then Etemen Ænka was clearly their version of Dune Messiah, a drastic expansion of the scope and scale of the original story, which was capable of soaring so high only because its predecessor had laid down such phenomenal ground-work.

Which would make Voidkind their very own Children of Dune, right?

Of course, comparing these two art forms – the album and the novel – can only take you so far, as the medium always influences the form and function of the message.

But Dvne‘s greatest strength, has always been their ability to tell stories through their music, and that remains as true on Voidkind as it ever was.

This time around, however, those stories seem that little bit more refined, that little bit more creatively concentrated – if Etemen Ænka had one particular flaw it was that certain tracks very occasionally stretched out ever so slightly longer than they strictly needed to – while also bringing back some of the raw energy of Asheran and combining it with the group’s increasingly polished progressive impulses.

Perhaps an equally valid comparison then (and one that’s at least in the right genre) would be with dearly-departed and much-missed Post-Metal pioneers Isis who – if they hadn’t broken up after the release of Wavering Radiant – might easily have ended up creating something that wouldn’t have sounded a million miles away from Voidkind.

From the sinuous, shape-shifting riffs and vibrant vocal interplay of electrifying opener  “Summa Blasphemia” and the massive grooves and moody atmospherics of “Eleonora” to the proggy, Tool-influenced slow-burn of “Abode of the Perfect Soul” and the melancholy majesty of “Pleroma”, Voidkind is an absolute masterclass in fusing rugged metallic textures and rippling melodic soundscapes (with new-ish keyboardist Maxime Keller playing a pivotal role in increasing both the depth and scope of the album’s expansive atmosphere).

But it’s not just Keller who brings their A-game here, as every member of the band seems to have pushed themselves that little bit harder this time around, from the increasingly aggressive/alluring back-and-forth vocal trade-off between Dan Barter and Victor Vicart to the dizzying percussive patterns of drummer Dudley Tait (whose work only seems to get better the more I listen to it) and the subtle, but vital, supporting role played by nimble-fingered bassist Allan Paterson.

As a result Voidkind is more than just the sum of its parts in more ways than one – the individual performances all add up to a stronger set of songs, and the individual songs in turn add up to a stronger album overall – and by the time massive, multifaceted closer “Cobalt Sun Necropolis” starts to overload your speakers (building as it does from its brooding beginnings towards a viscerally cathartic crescendo over the course of just under ten minutes) I think you’ll all have to agree that Dvne have, somehow, managed to outdo themselves all over again.

Of course, whether they’ll be able to keep doing that in the future is uncertain – we all know what happened with the novels – but, for now at least, Dvne seem to be firmly on the golden path.