By:
Daniel Jackson
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 25/6/2016
Label: Third I Rex
The technical
performance is often excellent, and I’d even go so far as to say that from a
stylistic standpoint, VIII are on the cusp of something truly fantastic. The
more they leave the Deathspell Omega worship behind and focus on the more
bizarre, theatrical elements they work with, the better they’ll be for it. If
they focus on what they excel at, and on those stylistic elements that very few
others are working with, the sky’s the limit.
‘Decathexis’ CD//LP//DD track listing:
1. Symptom
2. Diagnosis
3. Prognosis
VIII is:
DrakoneM
| Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Synth
Mark
| Drums
The Review:
VIII,
and their album ‘Decathexis’ are a
classic example of a band trying to find their voice. Their first and only
demo, ‘Division Hate’, was punishing
death metal, with programmed drums. It was well-performed but kind of rough
around the edges. Then you have their debut album, ‘Drakon’ which was an abrupt shift away from the previous style into
a deliberate, doom-informed take on black metal. The production was much
stronger, and the songs were better written, but ‘Drakon’ was still in stark contrast with the material before it. ‘Decathexis’ represents a blending of
the two, in a sense, but also taking up a very different character in terms of
the songwriting style.
This
time around, there’s a pretty clear cut influence from post Deathspell Omega
at work. The style of eerie, dissonant chords are very similar, and even some
of the rhythmic aspects sound familiar. That’s not to say this is by any means
a direct rip off, but it’s sort of like trying to listen to Sacramentum
without thinking of Dissection. In VIII’s
case, they do put effort into adding in elements that DsO
haven’t worked with, specifically including a lot of synth (including what I
believe are saxophone solos), and distorted noise.
Some
of the more adventurous sections work better than others. The noise/industrial
sections in “Symptom” are mixed much
louder than the actual black metal parts, which make it seem like the black
metal is a comedown from the noise peak, when those roles should probably be
reversed. Then there’s the prolonged synth break in “Diagnosis” which builds nicely, and works exceedingly well in a
vacuum, but seems a bit out of place in context. It resembles something out of
a Full
Moon Entertainment movie soundtrack (Think ‘Puppet Master’
or ‘Subspecies’).
Though
I’ve been critical to this point, it needs to be said that I think there’s a
ton of potential here. The technical performance is often excellent, and I’d
even go so far as to say that from a stylistic standpoint, VIII
are on the cusp of something truly fantastic. The more they leave the Deathspell Omega
worship behind and focus on the more bizarre, theatrical elements they work
with, the better they’ll be for it. If they focus on what they excel at, and on
those stylistic elements that very few others are working with, the sky’s the
limit. Pair that with some adjustments and upgrades on the production front
(less digital-sounding drums in particular), and VIII is going to be a band that takes
the genre in some exciting directions for years to come.
