VEXOVOID - Call Of The Starforger

Vexovoid - Call Of The Starforger

9 songs
47:42 minutes
***** ***
Earthquake Terror Noise

Bandpage

The band name may be rather misleading. Vexovoid was the title of an album released by Australian experimental death metal band Portal in 2013. That very same year, an Italian band decided to adopt that name, but if you expect strange metal sounds, you are not mistaken, except that the young Italians’ musical orientation veers more into a progressive thrash metal direction.

A first EP came out in 2014, followed in late 2017 by their debut longplayer Call Of The Starforger, which has been compared to American thrash metal band Vektor, who themselves have of course been compared to Canadian progressive techno thrashers Voivod more than once in the past. Maybe it’s my growing up with Voivod that makes me see those parallels more clearly. Some of the tracks on Call Of The Starforger have a rather generous length, like the six minute opener Omega Virus or the seven minute closer The Starforger, and in the middle of the album we get with Galaxy’s Echoes even an epic track at a little over eight minutes. For the remaining songs, the trio likes to keep it short and fast. The drums are furiously rolling through the music, creating a rhythmic foundation which is refined by the very versatile bass guitar that even occasionally spoils us with a solo. The guitarist also plays in a league of his own. His riffs are incredibly complex yet always catchy, and his instrument emphasises the higher notes, which give the songs a similar searing sound than we got to know and love from Voivod. The vocals are harsh in a thrash metal way, maybe not as illuminating as the instrumentation, but still fitting more than just well with the music.

It's mostly the Canadians short phase between Killing Technology and Dimension Hatröss that might have inspired Vexovoid, although the middle part of the long Galaxy’s Echoes reminds me not only a little of a part to be found in Voivod’s seventeen minute mammoth track Jack Luminous from their 1993 masterpiece The Outer Limits. So yes, Vexovoid are not truly an innovative or original band, but then it must be said that only few bands dared to emulate Voivod’s (or Vektor’s) hugely idiosyncratic take on progressive metal. Call Of The Starforger, although really strong from beginning to end, maybe still lacks those two or three tracks that you will keep humming in your head, but that’s probably for the next album. Until then, fans of sophisticated progressive thrash metal will get a mouthful of yummy with these young guys’ debut album.

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