Vvovnds – “Descending Flesh” [Album Review]

The latest release from Vvovnds displays a band that knows exactly how to punch you in the face and make a well-timed retreat. A full-length needs to be blistering, while allowing the band to explore moods and areas of themselves, which this album does in spades. For fast, chaotic and crazy, anything on either side of “The Light” (the band’s sole moment of crushing reflection) is pure carnage.

Sonically, Descending Flesh exists somewhere between crust, post punk, hardcore, black metal, and doom. It has some From Ashes Rise, it has some Converge, it has some Young Widows. But these aren’t mechanical “parts”. This band is much smarter than that. It’s all swirling medley: it cumulatively falls over and over into itself, like caramel being churned. I mean, if the caramel was composed of human misery and the bleakness of mortality, obviously.

The vocals have enough reverberation and echoes to turn into an instrument of their own. The rhythms and patterns largely complement the drive of the guitar and drums and bass. It’s symbiotic, and it’s filthy. It’s an interaction that is largely unexplored by other bands of late, though I have a suspicion that at some point in the near future this will soon change.

Try to stay seated while “Peine Forte” plays. I don’t care if you’re listening at home. Your pets better look out or they’re going to catch some elbows while you tear your fucking living room apart. I speak from experience.

It’s not all gravy. I can’t for the life of me understand why “Falling Back” didn’t jump back into life after its driving riff at the end. But if that’s the worst I can say about this album, why isn’t it already in your stocking?

Track Listing:

01. Never Change
02. Descending Flesh
03. A La Lanterne
04. Golgotha
05. The Light
06. Coins
07. Equality In Death
08. The Whip
09. Falling Back
10. Maleficia
11. Peine Forte

Run Time: 20:49
Release Date: November 3, 2015

Check out the album ‘Descending Flesh’ here.