Devil's Gate Music
Related Articles
Another day, another sub genre and Vita Museum offer up Alternative/Electro/Grunge Rock. Lets delve in to make sense of all of this!
For a debut it has taken Ivan King ten years to get this to release and as can be expected it is a very personal album that takes in a huge amount of influences. As you can imagine, with ten years in the making he must have tied down the songs to how he wanted them to sound. I bet the recording was a nightmare as he would known where each little note and tick should be, but in all fairness to producer Nero Argento, he has pulled off a monumental sound. It is vast and I am sure it is everything Ivan dreamed of.
FL0 starts with a very atmospheric intro track called ” Limbo”, this song along with pretty much the whole album has me screaming horror movie soundtrack. You get some Sabbath rain and thunder mixed with some Rob Zombie touches. “Circle” is up next and it kicks into a heavy industrial beat from the off. The breakdown of just distorted, echoey vocals and drums lets you know what a sensory overture you are in for.
“Somebody To Destroy” is a far more poppy (alternative?) rocker. Straight forward but with that Manson twisted genius. “Alive” takes us to the other end of the spectrum. This is OMD overload and a bit too much of a lurch for me, bringing back bad memories of working as a bouncer in clubs in the 90s.
“The Addiction” has a real fuzzy guitar start with a pop dipped synth. it is littered with harmonies, talking and a cacophony of sound and stimuli. This song is a belter and would work brilliantly live. With “Leave Me” you get just an acoustic and angry lyrics. It sounds like a musical confession of a mass murderer on an execution table, awaiting the drug concoction to take them away. I had a vision of a tortured soul screaming leave me as if filled with demons and the only release was the fatal injection. Did I mention it was stimulating?
We are off on another journey with,”Never Be The Same” this time to outer space with the intro sounds like an early Bowie weirdness mixed with an Alice Cooper classic through a distortion box. This one is another gem and will appeal to any NIN or Rammstein fans I reckon. “No Tomorrow” started like a 007 movie.I can see Blofeld stroking the cat with an evil grin; are you catching all these evil, nasty, horror dripping themes? This one reins in the heavy keyboards and rocks out in the more classic way. I loved the simpler approach on this one.
With a title like “Alone” I just knew we were going back to the weird and slightly depraved mind of Ivan. Don’t get comfy, don’t stay long as you may not make it out with all your faculties intact. “Another Time, Another You” hit a lot of notes personally for me and let’s just say I have been in the dark place this song is set. Chances missed, mistakes made and you just know that the whole thing is wrong.
“In An instant” sticks to the distorted, tortured vocals with a drum machine but what is this; are we going upbeat? The music is almost happy, the beat kicking and if this is a story is Ivan turning a corner? The album finishes with “Invisible Lies” and maybe my prediction was way off. The distortion is gone and the acoustic is back. This is the grunge part from the sub genre and we all know grunge was not the happiest of things.
As much as I read through this and portray dark depression it works fantastically well as an album. We know that the most dark and tortured of souls have produced masterpieces in every walk of life, especially music, so I would say give this a whirl. Maybe not in the midst of a party but on your own, with a great sound system or headphones as, if nothing else, it demands your attention.
Review Ritchie Birnie
]]>