Saturday 7 March 2020

Void Of Sleep - Metaphora (Album Review)


Release date: March 27th 2020. Label: Aural Music. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

Metaphora - Tracklisting

1.The Famine Years
2.Iron Mouth
3.Waves of Discomfort
4.Unfair Judgements
5.Master Abuser
6.Modern Man
7.Tides of the Mourning

Members

Allo - Drums and percussions
Burdo - Vox and Guitars
Andrea - Bass
Gale - Guitars and Chorus
Momo - Synths and Keyboards

Review

Metaphora is the new album from Italian Progressive Sludge/Doom Rockers – Void Of Sleep. These guys impressed me way back in 2013 when they released their debut album – Tales Between Reality And Madness. The band played a heavy stylized and progressive mix of Doom, Psych, Sludge and Stoner Metal with a twinge of classic hard rock grooves. Their 2015 album – New World Order – whilst a good album didn’t match the creative or dynamic flair of it’s predecessor. As the band went for a much darker theme for their 2nd album.

So what can we expect on their 3rd album. Well the band have struck the right balance of the psychedelic sounds of the 1st album with the more darker and progressive themes of their last album. Metaphora is a more well-rounded experience with the band seeming more relaxed on this album. Metaphora is still a heavy album with aggressive and punishing bursts of LOUD HEAVY ROCK sounds and Post-Doom elements reminding myself of Neurosis and YOB in many places.

The sludgy undercurrent of the album is what allows Void Of Sleep to play most of the albums standout moments but the band never forget show their mellower side with simple strands of Post-Rock appearing here and there.

The album has a dreamlike quality in certain stages of the album especially on songs such as The Famine Years, Iron Tooth and Waves Of Discomfort. Though the band do like to add a more nightmarish “DOOM” vibe to the album when the heavy and bleak sounds appear.

Metaphora is best treated as a singular album broken down into individual chapters with each song telling the next chapter in a highly complex and intriguing story. The music is always constantly moving forward with Burdo’s vocals laying down the context and narrative for the whole album.

Though if you’re here for just the music then Void Of Sleep have a wide array of different styles of Doom/Sludge/Stoner Metal music to impress you with on this album. The album does have it’s fair share of Ambient noises as well which takes the album into more darker avenues.

My favourite part of the album has to be the 3rd and 4th listed songs on the album – Waves Of Discomfort and Unfair Judgements. As these two songs bring out the best in Void Of Sleep with the lushly played Psychedelic Post Rock sounds of Waves Of Discomfort which move into more cinematic based territory on Unfair Judgements that left me wanting more.

The production on Metaphora is absolutely flawless with the band never sounding as good as this. The whole album sounds wonderful from start to finish and allows Void Of Sleep to play some of the best and heaviest sounds and grooves of their career.

Metaphora sees Void Of Sleep capture the early promise first seen on their debut album and unleash a challenging and exciting album that you would be foolish to ignore. This is a first rate album and potentially end up as one of my favourite albums of 2020.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Curtis at Dewar PR and Elisa at Aural Music for the promo. Metaphora is available to buy on CD/DD/Vinyl via Aural Music from March 27th 2020.

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