Way more violent, heavy, hostile and obscure than usual Atmospheric BM bands, Vukari practices a style that relies much more on the aggressiveness of raw Black Metal, but with a great focus on melody, giving their music a solid ground that easily matches the rudeness and the ferocity of traditional Black Metal with the whimsically fantastic and splendidly harmonic traits of Atmospheric BM.
With eight songs that really blends a futuristic fusion of BM variations – being them Divination I, Divination II, Cursus Honorum, Invictus Maneo, Ad Delerium I, Ad Delerium II,
Sovereignty Through Extreme Tyranny and Bathe In The Divine Light – Vukari also manages to create magnificent melancholic moments, with terrifically potent guitar riffs, and melodic atmospheres of anguish. Aggressive and more guttural vocals also have their moments of greatness on the record, that combines in an unusual, but very efficient manner all the great elements present in Black Metal.
Nevertheless, their style really doesn’t have any limitations, and broadens the usual frontiers of the genre, being the fourth track – Invictus Maneo – a great example of their versatility. A very rock’n’roll oriented piece of Black Metal, the abrasive, conspicuous and lucid guitar riffs of this track shows a great degree of ability and originality from these musicians, that comes out with a very personal and unique proposal on creating and playing their own style of Atmospheric Black Metal.
With a lot of great moments of beauty, melody and melancholic introspection – being the sixth track, Ad Delerium II – the apex of the poetic beauty of the record, Vukari really managed to compose a very astounding and peculiar album, that somehow, rearranges and redefines new boundaries, frontiers and possibilities not just for Atmospheric BM, but for Black Metal as a whole. Being a very promising and so far relevant act for the underground scene, I see a lot of great possibilities, as well as a very solid pathway for Vukari in their career, as these guys really know what they are doing, and what they are capable to achieve.
Despite greatly maintaining the distinctions and respecting the defined lines of the genre per se, Vukari softly and subtlety creates something very intriguing, adorning their music with a great deal of innovative friction, never giving up their compromised, but still very flexible ground of original creative stream. Being one of the greatest surprises of 2016, Divination is an album with a very solid and mature potential, that greatly matches artistic ambition, creative restlessness and objective lucidity. If you are into it, you can never pass this album. It is a marvelous undertaking for the Black Metal scene, in a black storm of pervasive guitars, and agonizing beauty. You have to listen to this album! You will not regret, I promise!
Wagner