| Reviews for Vrag's Black Plague of Human Extinction |
| Bass guitar played as lead = dark, strong melodies - 72% |
| Written by NausikaDalazBlindaz
on November 1st, 2009
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| Sydney-based BM act Vrag took about two years to record this album and during this time the act was down to just one person Vrag Moj so for my grubby little paws to be holding this recording for review says a great deal for Vrag Moj's self-belief and determination to complete this work. First thing I notice about this album which may reflect something of the obstacles Vrag Moj had to overcome is the insular and claustrophobic atmosphere throughout, thanks partly to skin-crawling raw guitars (which in themselves must have saved him a lot of work as a virtual one-man band!) that drone away continuously in the background and the sparse musical arrangements in which bass guitar and sometimes percussion dominate. Everything feels disconnected from the outside world and is creepy and alienated to the extent that when Vrag Moj's singing gets agitated, there's a sense that hysteria and madness borne of isolation aren't far away. I get a feeling similar to what I experience sometimes when I hear songs by the 1970's English band Joy Division whose recordings sometimes also had stark musical arrangements, were haunted by a dark insular ambience and were emotionally edgy. Sheer coincidence then, that this album, created in a way that might have been dictated as much by necessity as by choice, turns out to have a similar dark feel and deranged mood as songs created 30 years ago by a band Vrag Moj is not likely to be familiar with. The pre-eminence of bass guitar on all tracks gives them a strong moodiness as well as a melodic nature. Other elements like rhythm or instruments like piano and acoustic guitar may come to the fore on some songs and on a couple of tracks there may be effects that verge on psychedelic and trance-like, even if temporary. People familiar with the Australian BM act Striborg will recognise similarites between that act and the music here though Vrag has a much sharper and less washed-out sound with clearer vocals. With the music spare and straight to the point in function - it's not inclined to fly away on long journeys of improvisation even when opportunity presents itself - the vocals and lyrics must carry most of the listener's attention. Vrag Moj acquits himself well, employing a direct approach that is more spoken than sung. True, his vocal range isn't great and he doesn't go in for extended screaming-banshee stuff and similar theatrics but there's enough emotion and derangement to help give the album that slight hysterical edge. The lyrics are often dense and sometimes I have the impression Vrag Moj is fighting his way through them just to get to the end, there's so much he has to get off his chest! The other side of the coin is that if there were less lyrics in each song, some of the intensity and feeling of madness close by might be lost. Subject matter such as the futility of religious belief to provide spiritual comfort in the face of a disaster like plague and revulsion at being a member of a species given to repeated idiotic behaviours and a herd mentality, and the inner conflicts this causes, among other things attracts Vrag Moj's jaundiced attention and gets quite lurid lyrical treatment. Having written short stories myself, I can appreciate that at times it's not easy to avoid writing purple prose and that constant practice and trial and error are the main ways of developing a writing style that is at once descriptive, evocative and restrained. Best tracks for me are the ambient "Inner Hell pt 2" which features spoken word samples and a wobbly hypnotic guitar drone, a couple of songs "Hallucination" and "Nighttime" which have almost experimental percussion-dominated intros and "The Secret Discourse Between the Sky and Earth" for its whirling drone guitar pasage that almost takes the track into a another, more demented dimension. I like this album though it is long and can be exhausting to sit through all at once. The last two tracks revolve around the theme of the Black Plague which affected Europe from 1347 to 1350 so these can be heard separately from the rest of the album. Using bass guitar as a lead instrument that makes the songs dark and strongly melodic might be something Vrag the act could use as an essential part of its music. The main weaknesses of the album relate mainly to limitations that Vrag had to work with: the percussion can be weak and pedestrian and the droning background guitars don't change very much apart from a couple of songs where they lift off into a trancey hypnotic realm. With a steady band line-up that includes someone on drums, the songs would be a lot more robust and aggressive. The lo-fi production has its pros and cons: on the one hand it is raw and edgy, on the other the bass sound could be improved a lot and the album's moody quality would be boosted. Also having read a couple of issues of Vrag Moj's zine Procession of Black Doom, I'm aware he has quite diverse interests which include anime, pre-Christian Slavic religion and culture, and I think these could serve as inspiration for future songs and projects. |