Style: post-black (mixed (mostly harsh) vocals)
Review by: Dylan
Country: US-NY
Release date: 29 October, 2021
A good while ago, I was really into reviewing post black acts. This was thanks to the fact that I’d recently gotten into the genre, and with not many bands to explore outside the “big” ones (Like Alcest or Deafheaven) I simply started to sample artists labelled as such in Metal-Archives, hoping to strike gold. Doing this so insistently turned out to be a double edged sword: On one edge, I had found a plethora of bands to add to my library and enjoy, while on the other I had become far more picky with the genre. It really became a case of feeling like the new album that just came out sounding exactly like another 100 bands you’ve listened to already, which led me to understand post black’s limitations as a genre, in its very short lived 16 years of existence.
Still I accepted that eventually the genre was going to naturally branch out to other limits, so I keep myself in the scene to see what’s going on with it. Thus came Vivid Illusion with its self-titled output, which they said took about 5 years to finish. I was immediately excited upon hearing this, surely something way more interesting than your typical blackgaze album’s been cooking up under their sleeve right? They MUST have come up with brilliant, mind-blowing stuff if it took 5yrs to write an album of this genre, right?
Wrong. Vivid Illusion is like a student’s first post black album written for a project in metal university. Would it get a pass in the semester? Absolutely! Maybe even with a great grade. But the problem that I’ve run into when exploring this genre persists, as I can’t help but feel I’ve already heard this album in another 10 bands despite them pre-dating this release by years or even a decade. It has become so formulaic at this point that it is really hard to remain engaged unless said formula has got some of the best melodies in the genre, and while the stuff that’s on offer here is not bad, it’s also a far cry from a top album in the blackgaze scene.
With all of this in consideration, I can’t in good faith wholeheartedly recommend Vivid Illusion as it pans in comparison to its influences that drive the album forward. However, not everything here is a miss! So if you’re REALLY into post black, or just wanna have some relaxingly extreme music to do stuff to, this may be up your alley.
Recommended tracks: Beacon, First time Seeing with my Eyes Closed
Recommended for fans of: MOL, Deafheaven
You may also like: Show me a Dinosaur, Holy Fawn
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Metal Archives
Label: Independent
Vivid Illusion is:
– Aki McCullough (guitars, bass, vocals, synths)
– Ant Taboada (guitars, bass, vocals, synths)
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