Volbeat: the servant of the spirit
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If you know Volbeat’s previous seven studio albums, then you know the basic score: they mix metal, punk, psychobilly and melody with a heady but disciplined abandon.
However, after maybe treading water on occasion over the previous two or three albums, with this last one they’ve been a bit more adventurous. You can hear this on the slinky but spooky The devil is raging, as singer Michael Poulsen recounts how Satan came to Earth and took on human form to wreak havoc. It’s not a revolutionary subject, but Volbeat handles it with his usual individuality.
Shotgun blues, which is a true story of Poulsen’s encounter with ghosts, allows guitarist Rob Caggiano to deeply dig his love for Metallica and deliver perfectly viscous riffs.
And the closing epic Birgita de Lasse discusses the details of the first witch fires in Sweden in 1471. It does this without having to take the catastrophic musical approach many expected, but it’s not in Volbeat’s mindset. They prefer to give off an uncomfortable atmosphere by toning down their usual approach, and once again Caggiano comes up to it with stunning work throughout the nearly eight-minute track.
Of course, there are times that are more typically Volbeat, and in that vein Wait a minute girl is bright, airy and summery, inspired to a large extent by Jerry Lee Lewis, while the opener Temple of the Ekur derives its mantra from the kind of ancient themes the group has successfully explored many times before.
The whole album shines and flows with a real sense of purpose, and you know that not only did they have fun putting it all together, but they also put it together with the attention to detail that makes it a step forward. closed for the group. .
The best pieces here are Step into the light and The passenger. The former has touches of psychedelia, but these are never allowed to become overbearing and are used to add color and shadow to the overall texture. The latter (not a cover of Iggy Pop) is the band that channels his adoration for Lemmy, and does so in a very impressive way.
Like others, Volbeat has used recent global woes to reset its musical clock. The result is not only their best album in a while, but also one that opens up an exciting future.
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