Review: Vipassi – Lightless

Genres: Progressive metal, Death metal, Technical metal (Instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Ne Obliviscaris, Animals as Leaders, Blotted Science
Country: Australia
Release date: 26 January, 2024

Deep breath in.

The Australian fourpiece Vipassi—featuring members of Ne Obliviscaris, Black Lava, A Million Dead Birds Laughing and, well, check their Metal-Archives page for a thorough overview of these performers’ prodigious histories—are an instrumental project named for the twenty-second Buddha, the name literally translating to “having seen clearly.” Lightless, their sophomore release expands “into even more technical and experimental realms” than their debut Ś​ū​nyatā which “set the grounds for a technically impressive and fully instrumental exploration of sonic textures in what can best be described as – a divine experience reaching the depths of the human soul.” Contemplative technical metal for contemplative metalheads? Count me in!

The tracks on Lightless are often written around quite simple synth or chord motifs that anchor the songs while, beneath, Dan Presland obliterates the drums, Arran McSporran’s fretless bass glides freely wherever it pleases, Benjamin Baret’s guitar work is unhinged—riffs, melodies and solos all sort of combining at once—and Ben Boyle provides some more of that mad guitar playing as well as important synth atmospheres and layers. They eschew standard conventions of songwriting, opting instead to arrange technically performed sonic textures in contrasting bursts of intensity and moderation, in pursuit of a sort of meditative nirvana. 

In practice, Lightless just feels like a lot of noodling for the sake of it, sticking blast beats and aimless fretboard meanderings together in different combinations for fifty minutes. After the fifth track with a noodly bass bit, a few blast beats and some overcooked lead guitar parts, you begin to tire of it all. When “Labyrinthine Hex” climaxes around the four minute mark I thought, “oh great the song is starting!” But no, that passage ends, we go back to the chime motif and then everyone noodles around a bit more. Experimentalism means never having to say you’re sorry, and yet for a work that claims to push into “experiment realms,” every track feels the same, not beginning or ending so much as happening and stopping. Vipassi have two essential modes they switch between and it simply can’t sustain nearly an hour of listening. Suddenly, interesting melodies or ideas will grab your attention, but they, like everything on this album, are doomed to be swept away and never heard from again. Vipassi breathe deep and clear their minds; interesting compositional ideas arise in consciousness, are acknowledged and then dismissed—the problem with transcending music is that it makes it rather difficult to write an album. 

For all its pseudo-Dharmic omphaloscopy, Lightless can’t escape the fact that it just sounds like four very talented blokes in a studio having a jam sesh. Perhaps it’s myopic and unenlightened of me to want music to have a sense of narrative or drama, but even the purported exploration of chiaroscuro falls flat; the only contrast here is between endless noodles and endless blasts which, let’s face it, sounds like a digestive tract’s worst nightmare—it’s not all that fun for the cochlea either. Vipassi’s spacier sections—the reverb-laden chords, gentle drumming, and spacey ambiences—are hardly inspired either but they’re far more diverting than the discursive technical sojourns. These more atmospheric ideas are utilised best in the opening of “Ruination Glow” which ranks among the most structured tracks and is easily one of the best as a result, but these tenderer charms aren’t enough to save Lightless. 

The production, too, is fine but utterly utilitarian, the instruments sounding like they were recorded in a temperature-controlled studio—which they almost certainly were, but I don’t want my music to sound like that, particularly on an album which desperately needs the master to bestow a sense of weight, of grandeur. The best albums sound less like a product of mere musicians in a studio and more like the art manifested itself organically, pulled from the ether and wrested into form by forces unknown. Bitterly ironic, then, that this deeply contemplative instrumental prog vaguely inspired by Buddhism should sound so lifeless. 

I want to be clear: I admire these players so much. Baret and Presland have brought us countless wonders in their time with Ne Obliviscaris, and Presland also contributed drums to one of my favourite releases of last year (Rannoch’s Conflagrations), as well as a couple of other underground greats: Iapetus’ The Body Cosmic, and Irreversible Mechanism’s Immersion; Presland and Boyle thrive with A Million Dead Birds Laughing, while McSporran turned in brilliant performances on Virvum and Tómarúm‘s last albums. The talent and musical prowess this foursome possess is under absolutely no doubt, neither is the fact that they have chemistry together in their various other projects. And yet, outside of a handful of moments where the ideas briefly coalesce, that chemistry is sorely lacking on Lightless. 

At times, Vipassi remind me of my colleague Andy’s beloved Caio Lemos, his favourite practitioner of avant-garde black metal, from the dry production to the pulsating rhythms (e.g. 2:20 in “Lightless”). And Lemos’ projects such as Bríi and Kaatayra seem to come closer to achieving what Vipassi attempt: extreme metal sonic textures pushed to their logical conclusion so as to plunge the listener into meditative soundscapes. Vipassi’s need for erratic technicality robs the textures of any contemplative immersion, while the need to be contemplative robs the technicality of any point. The most successful track on Lightless is easily “Neon Rain” which brims with atmospheric layers, a structured rhythm, and drives inexorably towards a beautiful, crescendous solo. For one brief, shining moment Vipassi’s compositional talents feel fully realised; why couldn’t Lightless have contained more of this?

It doesn’t bring me any satisfaction to write any of this. These are rightly lauded performers with a wealth of the genre’s best releases under their belts, and yet for all their experience and acumen, I can’t find a path into Lightless, nor can I understand the way in which the band think this all fits together. I want to find some signal in the noise, some sense of flavour amid the reams of Ramen noodling, but it eludes me. Maybe one day I’ll listen to Vipassi again, a gong will chime, and I’ll ascend to a higher plane of prog, but without Xen there’s no zen here.

Recommended tracks: Neon Rain, Ruination Glow
You may also like: Teramobil, Dark Matter Secret, Tempel, Sleep Terror
Final verdict: 4/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Season of Mist – Bandcamp | Facebook

Vipassi is:
– Daniel Presland (drums)
– Ben Boyle (guitars)
– Benjamin Baret (guitars)
– Arran McSporran (bass)