DVNE melted minds with 2021’s expansive Etemen Ænka that successfully levelled up their songwriting in every single way. A captivating listen heavily inspired by – of course – Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic Dune amongst others. It took them around the world as they drew in listeners with mesmerising live shows off the back of the album. The question then, was, with its follow-up Voidkind, could they bottle lightning twice? The answer is a resounding yes, as it dials up virtually everything about Etemen Ænka, all while making it a more immediately engrossing listen.
Right off the bat, ‘Summa Blasphemia’ sets Voidkind apart from its predecessor by erupting into sludgy fury rather than any slow build to a peak. A battering ram of a track, it’s a practically svelte five and a half minutes, commanding attention with towering riffs that evoke grandiose places of worship as much as it does the sandstorms of Arrakis. Certainly, the band’s aim of being more immediate with some songs pays off hugely, the likes of ‘Reaching for Telos’ and ‘Plērōma’ further lending weight to that.
That’s not to say they’ve abandoned their progressive roots; far from it, in fact. They simply balance them against quicker payoffs, and the end result is spellbinding. Even shorter songs revel in proggier moments; ‘Summa Blasphemia’ has serpentine guitars amidst the sludgy heft, while the near-eight minute ‘Reliquary’ packs itself full of off-kilter drumming, endlessly entwining guitar lines and moments of coalescence so powerful they induce momentary euphoria, particularly around its five to six minute mark where it unfurls into gorgeous vocal melody and ascendant guitars.
DVNE also know when to pull back and let listeners take stock; ‘Path of Dust’ is a momentary reprieve that focuses on soft guitar and vocals, but before long Sarmatæ barrels into view, seismic riffs once more taking centre stage. This is what DVNE did brilliantly on Etemen Ænka and continue to excel with on Voidkind. There’s a sense of enormous, galactic scale to the way they compose songs, how the pieces fit together as part of the musical whole. The album itself is, again, a concept album. This time it’s about a religious cult that aspires to attain its goal, a god dimension in machinations that span generations; there’s clear influence of the Bene Gesserit, but the way the album tells individual stories that align at the end is inspired – as they admit – by Dan Simmons’ Hyperion work.
That culminating moment, ‘Cobalt Sun Necropolis’, is the biggest payoff on Voidkind, as both the conceptual and musical journeys reach their zenith. In an album where we’ve had the gorgeously melodic, extremely prog ‘Plērōma’, the towering ‘Abode of the Perfect Soul’ that bludgeons with one hand and soothes with another, ‘Cobalt Sun Necropolis’ winds every narrative and musical thread together in a 10 minute odyssey. Frankly, Voidkind is astounding; it takes everything we loved about Etemen Ænka and refines some areas, expands others and improves on simply everything. A proggy, sludgy, marvel.