Writing about music is often a cumbersome and obtuse activity. Essentially you are attempting to elucidate the reader to the pros and cons of an album through the medium of another art-form. Such a project is as nebulous and imprecise as can be imagined.
If you have any doubts about the innate stupidity of this, then please attempt to describe your favourite piece architecture by choreographing a dance routine and just watch your self-esteem diminish.
Secondly, as a committed and over-enthusiastic music writer, I listen to about 20 new albums a week. Searching for the hidden gems that the wider public need to hear and that also kick-start my creative and analytical faculties.
The ears get tired. The mind wanders and loses focus. Fatigue sets in and it becomes a challenge to differentiate between the valid and the vapid, the worthy and the worthless. It becomes gradually tougher to delve below the surface to find both the innate qualities of an album and my own opinion about the music presented to me.
As I said, cumbersome and obtuse, if only from an intellectual viewpoint.
But every now and then a record comes along which is so amazing in its complete complicity, that it burns away the accumulated restrictive preconditions and leaves the mind a fertile place were thoughts bloom unhindered by the needs of self-satisfaction.
Inmazes by Vola is just one of those albums. It's a luminous fusion of djenticular rhythmic dynamism and Scandinavian Pop sensibilities. Smooth and pragmatically rugged Vola have pulled off an audaciously executed magic trick. They have melded Meshuggah to Duran Duran and Skyharbor to A-Ha; and emerged out of the swirling smoke with their personality not only intact but even more distinct.
There is a gloriously fluid vocal drive to each song, that establishes a melodic continuity so evocative and nostalgic that this collection feels more like a greatest hits than a debut album. Its as though, that Vola are challenging you to doubt their existence. That something can't just spring from the ground so complete and without apparent flaws.
They know precisely when to sit behind a straight ahead rhythm and when to I unleash a powerful, angular groove. This blending of pop and prog is a difficult skill to master but one which seems to come naturally to Vola. They don't allow either form to dominate the other. The prog adding complexity and intelligence to the Pop, while the pop provides a directness and pragmatism that Prog can often lack.
Somehow they have managed to contort the staccato shapes of Djent to serve the emotional needs of popular song structure. Yet they have done this with such guile and sleight of hand that each form is improved by the flexion.
This is a record that plucks at the strings of both the heart and the mind, allowing both an emotional and intellectual appreciation of its substantial quantity of Vibes.
This album is available via a name-your-price deal on Bandcamp, a fact which is both delightful and saddening. It's great that everyone will be able to enjoy this wonderful record whenever they wish, but for making music this complete and wonderful Vola deserve the kind of reward that results in mansions, swimming pools and glamorous ladies. The music industry doesn't work that way anymore, unless you are Justin Bieber or Coldplay.
But there is hope. Physicist David Doitch propounds a theory that states that for every decision made, a new Universe is created in which the alternative action is dominant. So if this is true, out there, somewhere, is a universe in which Vola are already millionaires and have just been awarded their own private island by the Danish government.
– John Whitmore
Links: Facebook // Official Website // Bandcamp
