Voices – Breaking the Trauma Bond
Release Date: 26th November 2021
Label: Church Road Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Experimental, Metal, Extreme.
FFO: Bathory, Paradise Lost, Type O Negative.
Review By: Jay Creepy
Voices are from London and are described as Avant-Garde. They are Cradle of Filth theatrical, but hopefully without being irritating. As I began this journey into their new album, Breaking the Trauma Bond, I figured that Voices are pure masters when it comes to composing, directing their epics, and performing their instruments. Paradise Lost dissolving in a murky cesspool with Gary Numan basically came to mind for me.
Track one, A Field without Crows is for the majority instrumental, bringing in some vocals abet very briefly for the conclusion, a bit cock sure, but revealed (to my ears) the weakness of the gathering – the voice, no pun intended. I decided perhaps it was a one off, I mean the almost classical score had raised my anticipation to biblical heights, so just maybe…..
Peter Benjamin, pianist, guitar player and the man behind the verbals, sounds strained, there’s no power, and I’m sorry to be blunt but with what is happening behind you, you need to be commanding, I don’t mean the realms of Christopher Lee, but captivating nonetheless. Title track, Breaking the Trauma, is magnificent in its scope of music, sending you elsewhere, but I found Peter way too distracting.
Anyhow, An Audience of Mannequins, is totally different, Peter growls then throws down a few notes, and it works so well. This really reminded me of early Celldweller but without the attempted rapping moments and electric tweaks. I could ignore the strained almost trying not to mess his pants style which kept interrupting. Lilacs In-between finally feels complete to me. 80’s dark, fast, pounding, and this is where the vocals shine. “…. will you take her home?” lyrically this is tormented and really leaps out at you. The change which arrives just past the three-minute mark forms a cinematic landscape. This time round, the cracking voice as we fade has a sense of belonging.
Things trundle onwards until Methods of Madness, and it sounds akin to a local band who have just formed, doing a few quick demos to get to know one another, but track eight, Running Away, is a fuzzy dark electronic ballad. The words have meaning, are deep into the soul, but way too short-lived before we’re back into some really stupid sounding screaming, then trying to be Sisters of Mercy delivery. I’m almost done with this album. This is about as menacing as an ice cream left in the blazing sun for half an hour! Absent Equilibrium is maybe trying to demonstrate that, be off balance and off kilter, the drums are all over the place, and why is Peter yelling like a bloke with stomach cramps??!!!
The introduction to their single, Beckoning Shadows is edgy and evil, but along comes the rest, and it all becomes same old, same old. I listened to a few more moments down the list of songs before making it to the finale, Photographs of a Storm Passing Overhead with it’s “Hey Mickey you’re so fine…” drum patterns and inaudible yelps and things.
Yeah, I bet there’s many people out there who’ll tut and say, “Well Jay missed the point of this, it isn’t music, it’s…” etcetera etcetera. I can hear there’s some work that’s gone into this, however any imagination and direction by the midway mark is just scatter-shot, like having a pile of albums from different people mixed and thrown around but somehow sounding the same at the end. How is that possible???!! Look, I love experimental artists, I’ve listened to so much way out shizz from the late 60s, 70s, modern era stuff, whatever, but Voices are nothing new, they have no identity. By the middle of the album, I wasn’t solely blaming Peter Benjamin.
This should be powerful! This should have grabbed my cranium with invisible but strong hands and crushed me until I cried, yet by song eleven I was skipping through…. I lasted that long, this is like the stuff I found good years ago, so maybe new arrivals to the scene will like it. Voices are unbalanced, unfortunately predictable many times, and empty of any passion for the overall running time. Unlike most I’ve reviewed, this hasn’t made me want to explore their back catalogue (three other albums) but I will say, I do like their song titles. Great, but without anything to back it up, it all becomes as void as a gore/death metal band who just write titles like Virgin Boiled Innards Screaming into a Bowl of Dissolved Rats then grumble and mumble for no reason whatsoever.
(2 / 5)
