Style: Progressive Metal, Alt Metal, Djent (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: VOLA, Katatonia, Votum, Tesseract
Review by: Christopher
Country: US-NY
Release date: 30 June, 2023
We’re in the doldrums here, people. Quadrivium is the debut release from New York based duo Vordona, composed of vocalist Tony Ricci and instrumentalist Pavlo Mysak. They’re clearly influenced by the hard rocking alt metal styling of bands like Katatonia and Votum as well as more melodic djent groups like VOLA and Tesseract for that sense of thick, polyrhythmic riffing under softer atmospheres.
“Prelude” leads us into the album with a minute of portentous (synthetic) orchestra, segueing neatly into the ominous riffing of “Dark Moons” which is topped off by some decent choruses and a very solid guitar solo. While “I. Altered Perception” has some nice riffs and another pretty good solo, Quadrivium’s major flaw begins to make itself known: the whole album is rather one-note. Both the singing and instrumentation are perfectly competent, but there’s very little variation. After a few listens, not a single hook has stuck with me.
“II. Deliverance” opens with a tasty lead riff and later sees Mylak play with some quite compelling rhythmic subtleties, but the song’s chorus proves repetitive. Meanwhile, “IV. Testaments” sees him squeal out a pinch harmonic-laden riff before playing around with some more understated synth, and ending the song with some tasty lead guitar lines. If all of the tracks were as interesting as this, we’d be having a different conversation. Unfortunately, even this relatively strong track is somewhat undermined by the choppy cut-off before the brief synthy outro, “Postlude”.
Ricci’s vocal timbre is somewhat reminiscent of Benjamin Burnley of Breaking Benjamin (now there’s a throwback reference!) but with less aggression. Despite a reasonably strong voice, his melodies are unambitious; it seems to be a theme with Quadrivium. Some moments stand out—his meatier performance on “Dark Moons” for instance, but mostly I’m left struggling to think of instances where I’m more than just whelmed. It’s not the first or last time I’ll say it, but once again, Ricci’s issue is the band’s issue—a lack of confidence.
On their Bandcamp, Vordona boast that the album opens with a “a score displaying the heavily adopted orchestral facet”. Suffice to say, if they’ve adopted the orchestral facet they’re doing a great job of neglecting it. A very synthetic string section pops up now and again (i.e. in the bridge of “Dark Moons” and [other instances]) but these moments are exceptions rather than the rule. And while said strings are a bit too synthetic sounding to elevate the compositions, I’d still prefer them to crop up more often, if only to bring something else to the generic riffs and vocal lines.
Around forty minutes into Quadrivium, I looked at the runtime and saw that the entire album is only thirty minutes long in total, suggesting that either I’d hit some sort of time warp or that this album was boring me. Vordona manage to make a relatively short release feel like a chore; there’s simply not enough variation here to energise the prospective listener. Nothing Vordona do is bad but they’re also not doing anything interesting enough to earn any such epithets—I’m simply left with very little to say.
Quadrivium is a palatable debut, but it’s a predictable release with few surprises. Vordona have the fundamentals of progressive metal composition down pat, they just seem to lack the confidence necessary to engage their compositional imagination. You’ve got the chops to make some great music, guys; the only thing holding you back is yourselves.
Recommended tracks: Dark Moons, I. Altered Perception, IV. Testaments
You may also like: Sunbeam Overdrive, Alase
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Sliptrick Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Vordona is:
– Tony Ricci (vocals)
– Pavlo Mysak (all instruments)
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