'White Void' is a new project initiated by the singer 'Lars Are Nedland' who officiates in two groups tagged in black metal ('Borknagar', 'Solstafir') and who brought black metal drummer 'Tobias Solbakk' with him ('Ohsahn')) but also two other artists quite far from his musical styles, the blues rock guitarist 'Eivind Marum' and the bassist 'Vegard Kummen' who evolves in electro music. If you read the label's bio, « 'White Void', it's the lack of direction and meaning in life. It is the description of a fundamental gap between the search for meaning by the individual and the absence of logic in the universe », we say to ourselves that we are more in a treatise on philosophy than an album of music but, at the first listening, we are embarked in a musical universe which mixes different musical styles while keeping an immediate accessibility which confuses the listener with this double impression of immediately hanging on to the different melodies without being able to cling to known references, these two feelings being finally very well summarized in the definition of the label.
'Do. Not. Sleep.' starts the album in an atmosphere far removed from the black parts of 'Borknagar' with a fairly classic first construction but nevertheless bringing a dose of progressive with some changes in tempos and intensity and with melodic lines that are immediately tamed, then, 'There Is No Freedom But The End 'offers two faces with first of all, verses that can make think of certain sounds of the 80s, the group coming to my mind being 'Depeche Mode', then the chorus slows down the rhythm and goes up in power with a completely addictive melody. Follows 'Where You Go, You'll Bring Nothing' which starts in a slow tempo which releases an imposing force and which alternates with faster parts even integrating a kind of jazzy disgression, then, 'The Shovel and the Cross' us embarks on a mix between hard-rock from the 70s and new-wave from the 80s with a rather dark side and 'This Apocalypse Is For You' picks up the pace for a new mix, this time between hard-rock and punk. The great strength of these compositions is this fusion between several styles with alternations between catchy parts and others much more posed, powerful and solemn, process which one often finds in progressive rock but which is used here by integrating in it of other quite diverse influences drawn from the rock and hard-rock music of the 70s / 80s and 'All Chains Rust, All Men Die' is still the perfect illustration. And it is with the catchy and energetic 'The Fucking Violence of Love' which is much more linear than the rest while still having addictive melodic lines and 'The Air was Thick with Smoke', much more sought after in the construction which takes us on a track with several drawers always supported by hard-rock sounds that the album ends in a very nice way.
In summary, 'Lars Are Nedland' offers us a new project which is ultimately not so far from its two main projects in the approach because, in the same way as 'Borknagar', 'White Void' mixes different styles of music, the only component he removed being the black metal side which makes this new project much more accessible thanks also to melodic lines that integrate immediately... | |
