Vaina on No Clean Singing

http://www.nocleansinging.com/2017/04/24/shades-of-black-part-2-corpus-christii-do-skonu-merrimack-nyogthaeblisz-vaina/

Posted 25th April 2017 by: Ilias Lander (Islander)

Last but not least I want to recommend Viisikärki, the new album by the Finnish trio Vaina. It was originally released digitally on March 1, but I didn’t discover it until my friend Miloš linked me to the Bandcamp page of the Russian label Narcoleptica Productions, who will release it on tape on May 9 (the Mexican label Azermedoth Records will be releasing a CD edition).

The Narcoleptica Bandcamp includes two songs, and until shortly before posting this article I thought those were the only two tracks available for listening. But I’ve now discovered the complete digital release on Vaina‘s own Bandcamp.

I’ll make a few comments about the two songs I heard from the Narcoleptica Bandcamp, and hope you’ll feel inspired by those songs to listen to the rest of the album (which I definitely intend to do). I’ve included the full album stream below, in addition to the stream of those two songs: “Maanlyöjä” and “Antikristitty“.

“Maanlyöjä” begins in riveting fashion, with a sweeping keyboard melody that soars like an aurora borealis over the rapid pulse of the bass and the galloping of the drums, and an eerie, piercing guitar lead that comes and goes. As the song moves forward, the pace ebbing and flowing, it grows more and more dreamlike and haunting (the vocals themselves sound like the emanations of a deranged and dangerous phantasm) — and then it surges into a chilling and frightening frenzy, the vocals becoming terrifying in their shrieking intensity. The song proves to be both unsettling and mesmerizing.

That sense of falling into a hallucinatory experience persists in “Antikristitty”, though it’s more hard-driving right from the beginning. Killer, rocking riffs also surface in this song, surrounded with an air of menace and derangement, along with slower movements that create a blood-freezing and paranormal atmosphere. Eerie keyboards appear as well, gliding above pneumatic blasting. It’s an ever-changing and very dark piece of fascination, hellish and cosmic, feral and spectral… and definitely the kind of song that needs to be heard more than once.

I wonder whether listening to the entire album might threaten my sanity… but I do intend to find out.