(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?