Vahrzaw – The Trembling Voices of The Conquered Men
Release Date: 10th December 2021
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Death Metal, Blackened Death Metal.
FFO: The Chasm, Morbid Angel, Immolation.
Review By: Rick Farley
Well, the album cover is actually badass! That’s something! The Trembling Voices of The Conquered Men is an album that should be an automatic like for me. It checks all the boxes, Blackened Death Metal with hints of melody, a healthy dose of Thrash Metal attitude with little bits of progressive elements here and there. Thick meaty Morbid Angel style chord changes combined with fast blasting drums, Black Metal atmosphere and guttural growls. Sounds amazing right? Somewhere along the line, the translation between what this is supposed to be and what it ended up being became severely lost. Firstly, the album is opened and closed with classical style acoustic pieces that are both well played and presented; however, they make zero sense being the bookends of this album. What was the point? There are no parts of the album that would suggest they even coincide with any other songs. They’re completely just there for the sake of being there. Inexcusably blatant filler. This is something that could have been forgiven if the rest of the album wasn’t also a giant mess.
Musicianship wise, The Trembling Voices of The Conquered Men is solid. The individual performances are good. All capable sounding musicians that should be able to present a cohesive listening experience. You’ll be hard-pressed to find much consistency here, though. Just on track two, within the first three minutes, there’s at least ten different riff changes that push the song to utterly nowhere. No real reason for it other than just to do it, I guess. This album is generic, it has no focus, doesn’t go anywhere interesting and nothing sticks with you. Sure, there are a few cool parts here and there, but it mostly comes off as uninspired and unmemorable.
Vahrzaw is a band that’s supposed to be Blackened Death Metal veterans who’ve honed their craft over the years. The press release even states the genius of understanding its full scope must be revisited to truly decipher it. Translating that to what it should say, is they think they’re way smarter than they really are, and this record severely suffers for it. This album is boring and utterly forgettable. It sounds like a half-hearted attempt at manufactured brutality. A bunch of grade B riffs served up as grade A.
Moving on to a few examples of the songs, Death of an Unknown Architect dials up the Morbid Angel love, which is not usually a bad thing, but the fret noise is beyond loud and screechy. I’m not sure if they were trying to capture that on purpose, but it’s incredibly annoying. The song is seriously marred by unneeded noise and an awfully amateurish sounding solo in the midsection. Several of the solos come across as being purposely bad, as if to recreate a certain nostalgia. That within itself is annoying. Waiting with the Wolves is an OK song. It has a good bouncy Cannibal Corpse headbanging sort of feel to it with a bit of Black Metal atmosphere here and there. As Ships Upon Shores is a song that’s not even close to being what Vahrzaw labels themselves as. It’s very Doom Metal sounding. A far cry from being frosty and grim. It also suffers from screechy fret noise. The song Vultures is an example of what’s thought to be a Black/Death band going full on Thrash Metal, as if Mustaine himself wrote most of the riffs and Hammet showed up for a guest solo. It’s baffling. These songs just feel so off from one another. Ultimately, this album is just a mess of confusion that shows its glaring faults from initial listen and especially after repeated listens. I find no joy in beating this dead horse over and over, so hard pass. 
(2.5 / 5)
