Tuesday, April 10: Votum, “Spiral”
Like most genres, metal has splintered into multiple factions over the past several years, with bands increasingly staying within a single lane and honing in on one aspect of a particular sound. However, some bands have begun tinkering with the framework, and rather surprisingly, djent has seen some amount of evolution, as acts like Poland’s Votum have begun moving beyond the basic template and are instead working towards offering something less one-dimensional and more interesting. “Spiral” wasn’t groundbreaking in its approach, as it relied on familiar prog and djent touchstones, but it was dynamic in a way that went past the standard time changes and Meshuggah-lite riffing. Both of those things were there, of course, but so was a layer of Anathema-style melancholy courtesy of Bartosz Sobieraj and his Cavanagh-like crooning. Sobieraj’s vocals brought an airiness that gave the song more feeling and kept the proceedings from feeling like a simple technical exercise. But while the vocals were the focal point for “Spiral” and the rest of :KTONIK:, the rest of the band threw in bits of alt rock and doom to make the track stand out a bit more, and it all felt just a bit fresher as a result. If anything, “Spiral” indicated that Votum had the potential to be a more metallic version of Anathema, which, given the latter band’s detour towards softer terrains, would be a welcome development for prog-metal and especially djent.
