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You’ll find here a few thoughts of mine about the new album by Vassafor, from New Zealand, one of the most impressive, heavy and uncompromisingly evil bands around. I had already written about this band a few months ago for the blog of my metal mate Vonfrost. It happened during last autumn when the band sent in their link to the digital release of their new album, Obsidian Codex, while waiting for the solid version to come out and for the imminent visit to Europe in connection with a satellite gig to the Nuclear War Now! Festival in Berlin. When you hear extreme metal and New Zealand quoted together, you are almost sure that it is something at least interesting and almost always big indeed. Well, Vassafor is huge! Last year was a busy one for this band which has been active for almost 20 years by now and has become a reference for the black-death metal scene in that part of the world and beyond. As a matter of fact, past and present members of Vassafor are related and/or have (had) something to do with bands like Diocletian, Ulcerate, Weregoat, Skuldom, Nazxul, Anhedonist, also the fine doom band The House of Capricorn as well as Knelt Rote and the mighty Blasphemy. So, why Vassafor, a band officially tagged as black-death metal band, on Doommantia and why now? Because actually tags don’t work well with Vassafor, as this band’s style is anything but easy to categorize. And because Vassafor’s new album is eventually available as solid majestic double LP, via label Parasitic Records.
Year 2012 saw the release of Obsidian Codex, the first, monumental full-length album of the band after years of minor yet terrific releases worshipped by the many faithful fans from all around the world. This debut album was coupled with a massive compilation, Elegy of the Archeonaut, including probably some among the most impressive tracks from previous releases plus a few unreleased rehearsal and studio recordings. Obsidian Codex is nothing less than overwhelming, but it is not just pure quantity. Rarely yearly expectances have been better rewarded, and rarely long time and dedication to the refinement of art brought to the materialization of such fine quality. After several EPs and demos, amazing for quality but constrained as to space/volume, this band eventually approached the best form for unfolding the full narrative power of their music that can be loosely and poorly described as crushing, bestial blackened doom-death metal. I was about to write “destructive power”, but the sound Vassafor create is enormously multifaceted. Hence sonic destruction brought about by relentless bestial riffs, pulsating bass and hammering drumming is just one of the band’s aspects, albeit essential, reminding of the historical connections with total warmongers Diocletian and their other mates in New Zealand’s wildest black metal scene. After months and after several full immersions in this sonic experience of Obsidian Codex I still can say that I have rarely heard a more stunningly complex yet primitive album.
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Complexity stands for multiple musical components and wealth in shades to be caught each time one approaches, or better, drowns into this giantic album. In Obsidian Codex the blasts of pure war metal chaos or bestial violence nucleate from a slowly boiling magma of imposing doom death metal by means of extreme tempo changes. Doom death metal has probably never been so varied in shades and atmospheres as in this album. You may experience doom death style reminding of Father Befouled, Cultes of Ghoules and alike, or else you may plunge into long, epic and funereal drift where Evoken-styled majestic doom reigns. But also some dark, ethereal and mindwarping sounds and atmospheres will surprise you and make you wonder whether bestial black-death metallers Vassafor are jamming with OM … Evil space psychedelic noise will throw you deeply into an annihilating cosmos right via the very long intro, and that freezing cosmos will swallow everything at the end. The other side of this staggering album, primitiveness, is for the archaic inner chords that this otherworldly sound is able to touch, for the detachment from any concept of time and space, for the total darkness pervading your mind during the sonic experience, and, not least, for much inspiration in the song-writing (as explained by frontmanVK in some interviews). All this and more cannot be stuffed into the normal size of an album: it has to overflow to almost 100 minutes. And, in spite of such long time, an evil miracle will occur: time will be eaten away while Vassafor’s plague will spread around …
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The production of the sound in this album is amazing as it is able to enhance both the black metal chaos and the atmospheric doom sounds without sacrifying any contribution from guitars, bass, drumming and the unearthly suffocating vocals. No surprise, probably, as frontman VK is an experienced sound engineer. But pure, cold technical skills do not explain everything. Also the sensitivity towards finding the right chemistry and eventually successfully blending different genres, and sometimes even strikingly apart, is a skill belonging to Vassafor since ever. As a matter of fact it is impossible to forget the stunning suite Dreadnaught. There an awesome performance of an opera lady singer plus the insertion of piano were masterfully nested into Vassafor’s total darkness …. Dreadnaught was originally in the 2007 self-titled EP but it can be found now in Vassafor’s new 2012 compilation. So the new album is not really a break from previous Vassafor’s releases, as probably also suggested by the combined release of the massive Elegy of the Archeonaut compilation. It is as if the sonic deflagration in this new album had acted like an avalanche blowing time and space away. As a matter of fact, the band sampled some emblematic tracks from basically all their past releases (eg., Rites of Ascension, Craft of Dissolution, Archeonaut’s Return, …) and nested them into the new creature together with the impressive new material, thereby creating a sense of continuity with the past as well as overcoming the cage-like limits of the short release. The very title of the album, Obsidian Codex, and of the third track Obsidian King, may be an echo of Vassafor’s very first release, i.e. 1997 Demo I and its “Obsidian Prince”.
Apart from these petty details, what counts is that Vassafor’s music is something unique and overwhelming. And after Obsidian Codex doom death metal will never be the same.
The solid, massive Obsidian Codex Double LP is out now on Parasitic Records, whereas the Elegy of the Archeonaut CD compilation is out via Dark Descent Records (see links below).
Words:
Marilena MoroniFacebookVassafor | Parasitic RecordsVassafor | Dark Descent Records
Vassafor - Makutu (Condemned To Deepest Depths)
Vassafor - Sunya (Void Paradox)
