Style: Progressive Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Review by: Will
Country: Germany
Release date: 25 March 2022
With a name darkly evocative of the times we have been living through for the past two years, Virocracy have released their third album – Ecophagia – an anxiety induced nightmare of a record with liberal application of brutal vocals, machine-gun percussion and a heavy, oppressive feel throughout.
Ecophagia (roughly meaning “to devour the environment”) is an incredibly strong album concept to release at the moment. It speaks to almost universal anxieties of disease, the environment and the dreadful knowledge that humans may well be the architects of their own extinction. Virocracy explores these themes in a number of ways across the album: ‘Uproot’ dealing with mass extinction via cordyceps fungus, for example. Metal has an illustrious history as a medium for exploring the darker side of the human psyche, touching on our darkest anxieties, neuroses and tendencies. It’s great to see bands like Virocracy continue this exploration into contemporary horrors with Ecophagia.
Many of the tracks feature some really impressing riffing by guitar triumvirate Alex Jelinek, Leo, and Mika whose sound oscillates from the mind-bending complexity of Cynic on tracks like “Befallen”, to crunchy Meshuggah-inspired djent feels on “Devolution” by way of the percussive force of Slipknot on “Ecophagy”. Though it would be great to hear these various elements synthesised together into a cohesive sound for Virocracy, it is undeniably impressive. This makes listening to Virocracy, in the best possible way, somewhat like getting hit in the face with a block of wood with a particularly difficult Sudoku puzzle on it.
Anika ov Moseberg’s vocals are a great addition to the album. Having a higher pitch works really well with the downtuned guitars so that the bass end of the track doesn’t end up getting too crowded. Anika’s ability to really brutalise a long growl is on full display on “Arboreal Sleep”. The clean, spoken and whispered vocals on tracks like “Reminiscence”, “Arboreal Sleep” and “Bruteus Alpha1” offer good variety for the listener as do the moments where she breaks into a higher scream on “Devolution”. However, across most of the album, Anika does little to vary the pitch and tone of her voice. This may be a stylistic choice to have the vocals add to the onslaught of sound that is Virocracy, but this ends up desensitising the listener. Inviting a comparison between Anika and Angela Gossow feels somewhat unfair but Gossow brilliantly demonstrates the effectiveness of varied vocal tone across a track. Anika’s overall tone seems flat by comparison.
This lack of variety across the album isn’t just limited to the vocals, however. Virocracy’s energy and pace is relentless with every track eager to be just as fast, aggressive and complex as the last. While this is a most definitely laudable philosophy for a death metal band; it does mean that the songs blend into one another somewhat and the listener, having grown desensitised to the constant onslaught, begins to lose interest. Admittedly, it might not have been Virocracy’s intention for listeners to just digest the album in one sitting but rather pick and choose individual tracks. Who knows! Other fast, aggressive bands have overcome the listener exhaustion conundrum by varying their song intensities somewhat, in order to introduce lacunae for the listener to recover in. Having lower songs doesn’t necessarily mean the album is less metal: Slayer can slow it down for “Seasons in the Abyss” or “Dead Skin Mask” (just off one album) to give the listener time to breathe.
As a band, Virocracy and its members are hardly the new kids on the block: pretty much all the band members have a number of other projects under their collective belts. There’s undeniable skill at work throughout the album and a real creative force behind the band and album concept. There are also some very cool musical moments to be found on this album. However, despite the conceptual strength of the album, finding and hanging onto those moments in the maelstrom of sound that is Virocracy is a challenge for the listener. It will no doubt be exciting to watch Virocracy continue to develop as a band and I eagerly anticipate their next album.
1 Incidentally, this track is the current frontrunner of The Progressive Subway’s “Most Chad Track Name of the Year 2022” award.
Recommended tracks: Devolution, Arboreal Sleep
Recommended for fans of: Arch Enemy, Meshuggah, Slipknot
You may also like: Entheos
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Apostasy Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Virocracy is:
– Leonard Fuchs (guitar)
– Florian Betz (bass)
– Anika ov Moseberg (vocals)
– Mika Holm (guitar)
– Sebastian Unic (drums)
– Alexander Jelinek (guitar)
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