V:28 - SoulSaviour

V:28 - SoulSaviour

"Soulsaviour" is the second part in the V:28 trilogy. The trilogy started with "NonAnthropogenic" in the year 2003 and it showed a band with a complete own sound and style. It actually is very difficult to give a good musical description though I guess industrial post black metal will come quite close. For the aforementioned debut album the band had put much effort in getting the cover, lay-out, image and music to fit well together. With success that is. And I've told it my review from "NonAnthropogenic" already; V:28 definately managed to create something completely new and that album even did belong to my personal favourites from the year 2003.

Now in 2005 the story continues with "Soulsaviour...providing a bright future". First of all I want to say that V:28 did an excellent job in continuing the story through the cover and lay-out. For example "NonAnthropogenic" had ten songs and "Soulsaviour" therefore starts with track number eleven. Also the printing on the cd, which shows number 1 to 28 continues in the same vein. On the debut album the first ten numbers were printed thicker and brighter while on the second album the numbers eleven to nineteen are printed thicker and brighter while the remaining numbers are more vague to see.
Another continuation can be found on the cover. Once more the billboard next to a road is the most important part on the cover, this time showing a sexy nurse with the album title "Soulsaviour....providing a bright future". Maybe this nurse will be the only 'bright future' because all land is destroyed after the all-destroying apocalypse? The last connection I want to mention here is that same billboard, now on the back of the cd-cover. On the debut album there were only ten songtitles to be seen on that billboard. Once more that billboard can be seen though now the first ten titles are fading away and only number eleven to nineteen are clearly to be seen. There are actually even more connections to be found though I'll leave that for you to find out! There are more bands who have connections between albums but in all fairness, I haven't seen one band who's done such a good job as V:28 did so far. Excellent!

But no matter how good a cover might be and no matter how well-though the connections are between both albums, it still is the music that counts. Well, I can assure you that V:28 once more released another great album and for me "Soulsaviour" already belongs to my favourite albums from 2005. Just like the previous album also this one has got a very good, heavy and clear production, this thanks to LRZ from Red Harvest who produced the album. The sound is actually exactly the same as "NonAnthropogenic" so also soundwise there is a connection between both albums. The musical style is, how surprising, also a logical continuation of the debut album. Therefore I don't see the need in talking about each specific song, simply because the complete album must be seen like one piece. And it is even better to play both albums after oneanother to 'really' get into the story.

So if you're into post apocalyptic sounding industrial alike post modern black metal than V:28 is definately thé band to check out. Both their albums are among thé most important industrial black metal albums of all time.

Original review at http://www.archaic-magazine.com/

Atmospheric Black/Death, Norway
Full-length, Vendlus Records
May 24th, 2005

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