Review by Gary Spiller for MPM
For over three weeks Scandinavian prog-metallers Vola’s November-long European has snaked its way across the continent and tonight their wagons roll into Bristol.
When they set foot in London for the first gig of the UK leg this was, quite incredibly, the twelfth country that the tour had rocked up in. With German progsters The Intersphere and Dutch symphonic talent Charlotte Wessels on board this tour is well and truly a league of nations across nations.
Just under a fortnight ago, with the band’s touring machine somewhere enroute between Krakow and Prague, this ascendant quartet was announced for the bill of next year’s Download Festival. This evening expectations are stratospheric and rising, Vola’s last visit to this city was on the other side of the Bristol Bridge at the historic Fleece. Clearly their stock is in on the increase.
The opening half hour of the evening belongs to The Intersphere with their alt / indie sleight upon a metallic prog element that is persistent to the core. Whilst a completely unknown quantity to myself this four-piece from Mannheim have six albums to their name since formation back in 2006 a year after meeting whilst students at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg.
Following an atmospheric intro, with the stage bathed blue, an opening triplet from their most recent release – last year’s ‘Wanderer’ – gets things shifting up through the metaphorical gears. With a controlled ebb and flow, entwining heavy rage flows with mellow gently eddying pools ‘Wanderer’ sets out the quadrumvirate’s stool from the off.
The edgy ‘Down’ follows with guitarist / vocalist Christoph Hessler slamming riffs through the flooring. SWX fills up as the funky undertow of ‘Who Likes To Deal With Death?’ ploughs a divergent furrow. Precise in technique with an untamed heaviness ‘Antitype’ ramps it up. The penny drops as dashes of Firekind with daubs of Empyre shine through, in a mellow moment Hessler gets close to Sting in vocal terms. It’s a strange brew but a most compelling one.
Between galloping fracas of ‘The Grand Delusion’ and the chopping fury of ‘Prodigy Composers’ Hessler laconically laments life on the road for an opening band. Excusing an anticipated early departure, he explains that they’ve got to drive themselves to tomorrow’s gig in Luxembourg. Did someone once state that rock n’ roll is a glamorous thing? Even with five hundred miles ahead of them The Intersphere have delivered emphatically. Expect further plaudits on their UK club tour next March.
“We were scanning the cities,
Rocking to pay the dues,
But besides of the glamour,
All we got was bruised.”
Mary On A Cross – Ghost
These four lines, above, lifted from Ghost’s masterpiece seem so apt when related to the next artist to tread SWX’s boards. All the more so give that Dutch classically trained vocalist Charlotte Wessels released, in a fiery symphonic brandishment, a version as a single just last year.
A pre-gig band huddle, out of sight, unseen by the huge majority of those now filling SWX serves to focus and bond. A booming, bombastic intro track gets the assembled clapping along. Stage lighting pulses with drummer Joey Marin de Boer synched. The rest of the band follow with Wessels straight out to the front as keyboardist Sophia Vernikov strikes the distinctive first notes of ‘Chasing Sunsets’.
The former Delain singer Wessels’ influences shine brightly – imagine a melding of Kate Bush and Dolores O’Riordan – in this haunting opening track. A ghosting in the manner of the fiercest of poltergeists served up with a beguiling eight-string order courtesy of guitarist Timo Somers. Like the set-opener all bar one number of the 45-minute set are taken from the recently released ‘The Obsession’.
Gathering together her former Delain bandmates de Boer, Somers and bassist Otto Schimmelpenninck van der Oije along with Vernikov Wessels is justifiably proud of this studio offering. Speaking in an interview with Metal Hammer back in July Wessels notes “There were moments in the studio with the band that truly reminded me of why I love making music in the first place, and I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about music going out into the world.”
This is something, along with a sincere fragility, which comes through in waves throughout. The metal opera ‘Dopamine’ is a grand noble lion that shakes its mane regally. Trembling we’re transfixed as, with an unstoppable force, an ethereal haze swirls during ‘Ode To The West Wind’. Leaning towards a heavied-up Unleash The Archers it’s the stuff of goosebumps.
Wessels is very open about her struggles explaining that the highly emotive ‘The Crying Room’ is a song about the anxieties of performing whilst suffering from performance anxiety. It’s beauty encapsulated drawing upon the likes of Within Temptation, Amaranthe, Evanescence and Visions of Atlantis. Somers’ octet of strings shimmer during the coruscant solo whilst Wessels, attired in a white ‘I Love Crying’ t-shirt admires.
The melodic maelstrom ‘Vigor and Valour’ takes the contrasts of Unleash The Archers and Infected Rain alloying them in an impressive force de majeure. A sound to fill arenas ‘Praise’ overflows gloriously before ‘Soft Revolution’, the sole selection not from ‘The Obsession’, takes to flight. In full song like the skylark high above its moorland nest Wessels and her cohorts captivate.
Hard as nails, yet equally as intricate ‘The Exorcism’ is dedicated to all those in the crowd who have any demons to exorcise. Judging by the enthusiastic uptake there’s a sizeable number of us! Wessels even develops an underworldly growl to her vocals in this forceful closing number. A career in black or death metal awaits perhaps? Thunder rolls and lightning flashes an ungodly red. Add Wessels’ name, in permanent marker and bright lights, alongside the likes of powerhouses Sharon den Adel, Amy Lee, Elize Ryd, and Tarja Turunen.
Echoing and reverberating we’re taken to the oceanic depths as Vola limber up. Through the obsidian emptiness, like four 21st century Jacques Cousteaus, so the quadrumvirate tread forth for muster. Standing sentinel like opening track ‘I Don’t Know How We Got Here’ bursts into life.
With brushes of a searing combination of Pink Floyd and Von Hertzen Brothers – touches of the old and new – we indulge in the haunting prog tempest offered up. The relatively unburdened stage reflects the band’s minimalistic approach, the grandeur lies within their music. Along with a synched lighting rig their tunes do the talking, in the main, for them.
The overwhelming majority of Vola’s seriously intense set is drawn from their most recent two long-players; a near balance from 2021’s ‘Witness’ and ‘Friend of a Phantom’ released just a month previous. Going forwards from its ‘Friend of a Phantom’ sibling the elevated levels of ambience emitted from the dam burst of ‘We Will Not Disband’ sees heads nodding throughout SWX. It’s a majestic despatch, the call from the mountain eyrie.
Reflecting upon previous visits to the city frontman Asger Mygind enthuses “It’s a joy to see the crowd growing every time!” Perhaps one day their colossus will deservedly grace the spacious environs of The Beacon a few minutes’ walk across the city centre. A cheer greets Mygind’s opening riffs in clear crowd favourite ‘Stone Leader Falling Down’. Its pummelling onslaught unifies.
The progged-up atmospherics continue to rise with the jaunting ‘These Black Claws’ trading its intensities for a mesmeric reverence. Such devotion isn’t purchased, it’s won over time with masterful patience much akin to the dragon’s treasured trinkets. With a keyed intro, courtesy of co-founding Martin Werner, a touch reminiscent of Marillion’s ‘Pseudo Silk Kimono’ the delicate bloom of ‘Glass Mannequin’ phosphoresces.
Attention switches to earlier material with high-paced exasperations of ‘Alien Shivers’ and ‘Gutter Moon’ truly compelling. Mygind musing on the latter, a ratcheted up Soen, “It’s nearly ten years old!” Storming the stark battlements Vola unshackle ‘Break My Lying Tongue’ prior to detonating with ‘Head Mounted Sideways’. The mosh pit that opened up in the former continues good naturedly, the evening’s density perdures in its escalation with each passing moment.
A guest vocalist, whose name eludes me, joins Vola for a particularly spirited unleashing of the epic ‘Cannibal’. Filling in the parts laid down by Anders Fridén of In Flames the guest slots in seamlessly as if he’s been here from the off whilst Mygind despatches behemothic power from his seven-string baritone Balaguer. The adoring crowd sing every word of the emotional ‘24 Light Years’ with Mygind alone in a crowd of company.
Werner’s Jarre-infused keys herald ‘Starburn’ which is etched deeply with sheer vehemence. If Pink Floyd had reinvented themselves as a modern-day metal outfit this is what I imagine they would sound like. Perhaps Vola would have been a stablemate on the Harvest label if they had been booting about in the 70s?
With a stage aptly bathed in red ‘Bleed Out’ takes on an underworldly imperious stateliness with the quartet ghostly silhouettes in the haze. ‘Paper Wolf’ simply explodes, the feral beast flexing its muscular physique in dramatic fashion. With towering avalanche forces employed ‘Straight Lines’ winds up the main body of the set.
SWX, however, are in no mood to let our Scandinavian invaders go so easily. A loud, raucous repeated chant of “Vola” erupts volcanically. With a breakout of crowd-surfing the bone crushing ‘Stray The Skies’ sees Vola reconvene for one last fully satiating outing. Vola er et prog-metal stjerne of that I’m, along with several hundred SWX’ers, absolutely certain.
