Pennsylvania duo Veilburner walk the line between very technical, weird and accessible on their new album, entitled. VLBNR. Like the prolific group’s other work, Veilburner’s sixth album in eight years combines black and death metal with progressive and avant-garde leanings to create what is easily their most intense work to date.
VLBNR is 50 minutes long but it feels like much longer; Veilburner balance the dizzying instrumentation with lots of eerie, quiet sections focused on atmosphere, quiet guitar playing and tortured vocals, things that set the scene for the next full-on onslaught. It’s easy to draw comparisons to certain parts of the band’s sound but as a whole? Not as simple. Akercocke and Voices are good starting points but the places Veilburner takes the listener are their own.
The band also believes that VLBRNR is the best representation of their music.
“VLBRNR is a statement piece in comparison with previous albums, in that we took all of what we felt were the best components of our sound and songwriting that we’ve cultivated over the course of five previous albums, and refined them into a single album which we feel offers the best representation of who we are and what we do. If someone only had time to listen to one album from us, and asked us which one would give them the best overall impression of our work, we would tell them VLBRNR.”
Transcending Obscurity will release VLBRNR on December 2, but you can listen to the whole thing now.
