Album Type: Full-Length
Date Released: 01/01/2015
Label: Total Rust Records
‘Wreck Among Ruin’ CD track listing :
1. A wreck Among Ruins
2. Cloth Spun of Night
3. Shared Sins and Harboured Secrets
4. Thrown To The Lions
5. The Vastness Consumes Us
6. Butchered In The Fog
Volition is:
Mark Burns
James Doyle
Jas Murray
Mark Burnett
Review:
It has been seven years since Volition’s last slab of doom, and with few of personnel changes, they are back more determined than ever to molest your soul. Despite their lengthy absence, their new record ‘Wreck Among Ruin’ immediately pick’s up where the debut left off and gives us six new tracks of filthy, minimalistic doom. Mark Burns’ apothegmatic growls set the standard of the record, in essence Volition delivers an hour of the very best music this genre has to offer, no Questions asked.
The record starts with ‘A Wreck Among Ruins’ and I find myself with an immediate grin on my face. What I love about the band is the droning quality of the riffs, notes appear to last for days, indeed the small minimalistic changes that you barely hear the first time, will be discovered after repeated listens. Up next is ‘Cloth Spun of Night’, the main riff is supported with pounding drums and is the perfect example of the reason I love doom. Sometimes good music is the least complex, but with an abundance of head banger riffs and an added edge of fuzziness, nothing tastes sweeter.
With ‘Shared Sins & Harboured Secrets’ the listener is thrust back down into the depths of despair. To make an interesting track is not easy and over the course of 10 minutes is perhaps even harder, however this song is a good example of what I appreciate most with the band. They make these small little changes in atmosphere, sometimes changing tempos to create interesting and dynamic tracks instead of playing the same downtuned chords over and over again
“The Vastness Consumes Us” has a wonderful and mournful guitar solo at the end of the song with an abrasive tone that makes my skin shiver. It’s awesome and is another example of bringing variety into a very straight forward song. What is also striking is that this track reminds of Type O Negative and that’s never a bad thing in my opinion.
The brutality in “Butchered in the Fog” is an absolute ten ton hammer blow. It’s another demanding track through the heaviest landscapes of doom. Whilst treading a familiar path to the other songs and the fact that Volition don’t stray far from the established template, in the end we are served a very delicious and punishing fade out. Again, this is another example of the band using effective and atmospheric changes to benefit the record, a skill they employ during the whole record.
On the whole, this could be one the bleakest pieces of music you will hear this year and fans of this type of music will not be disappointed. Who want their music colourful anyway? Once I came to my senses, I felt that I have had the honor of listenining to one of the best funeral/death doom records in many years. This record is an absolutely crushing statement. A record I will set high when I summarize the year.
Words by: Sven-Åke Alveving
‘Wreck Among Ruin’ is available here
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