7.

Dvne

Voidkind

Scottish post-metal madness, with giant sandworms! Yummy stuff. It’s pronounced ‘dune’ and was initially spelled that way too until threatened legal action from some other band called ‘Dune’ forced them to switch the ‘u’ for a ‘v’. Named after Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, and occasionally featuring lyrical references to it too, as soon as I discovered Dvne there was no question that I was going to gobble them up like a stranded spice harvester. Voidkind is their fourth record, and – having now backtracked a little – I’m fairly sure it’s their best work so far. Dvne’s take on post-metal immediately calls to mind the more proggy end of Mastodon’s output (say, Crack the Skye from 2009). Elder, another band that has graced The List before, are a notable touchpoint too, especially in the mellower (never mellow!) sections of Voidkind. I also hear a bit of everyone’s favourite instrumental post-metal pioneers Pelican, at least here and there. There are some hooky riffs once in a while – ‘Abode of the Perfect Soul’ in particular has a killer, thrashy refrain – but for the most part this is at the opaquer end of the post-metal genre. It’s sludgy and dense, with complex, multi-part arrangements overlapping within each of its tracks. A record that took numerous plays to fully unlock, Voidkind was released in April but only truly came into its own for me in November/December. To summarise, then: this is an impenetrable, indulgent progressive metal album with few hooks, rooted in veiled references to a geeky sci-fi series, and featuring lots and lots of guttural shouting. It is unlikely to be for most people.