Aural Aggravation

Suicide Records – 26th May 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

From the very opening bars, you get a sense of expanse, of importance. A certain flexing, you might say. But is this real, or is it bombast and posturing? Is this, as the title suggests, a false haven musically, or is it a work which explores darkness. Can we trust Vorder? Can we trust anyone?

They emerged from the Swedish underground hardcore scene of the 90s, with the band coming together before the turn of the millennium, albeit with a different rhythm section. According to their bio, ‘What started conceptually over 20 years ago as a straight path towards a better life with a socio-political agenda has during the years evolved into a realm of survivalism in an ever-increasing nihilistic environment.’

This does very much feel like a fair summary of the last two decades: whatever optimism – or fear – the new millennium brought, I don’t think even Nostradamus could have predicted the global lurch to the right and the warzone that the Internet has become. And these are simply the tip of the iceberg. Recent history, and the present, is not littered with atrocities: it is one, continuous atrocity. Simply getting through a day in the world in which we find ourselves feels like a major achievement. And with False Haven, Vorder have navigated this brutal terrain with an album that’s textured, contemplative, and monumentally forceful.

Opener ‘Introspective’ is a mammoth cut, with an epic build and a super-spacious production. The weight of the riffage drops just over the minute mark and it slams in on the same grand scale as Amenra, and the strangled, strained, rasping vocal, low in the mix, are also in the same vein. There may be a certain level of grandeur and elevation to this, but it soon becomes clear that this isn’t mere theatre: this is heavy, expansive music born out of sincerity.

‘Beyond the Horizon of Life’ begins with a slow, picked intro, brimming with atmosphere and reminiscent of Fields of the Nephilim but of course, equally, Neurosis. The surge of power that bursts is an explosive release of tension, a rush. ‘The Few Remaining Lights’ is an eight-and-a-half minute epic that delves dark and deep and with segments of clean vocals that radiate emotion – and the more delicate passages mean that the raging torrents which follow have even greater impact.

The title track, slap in the middle of the set, is also the album’s shortest, and it’s a thick, chugging sinister slow thrash chug – but there’s some melodic lead guitar work that lifts it, and it’s nuanced work that’s not the commonplace fretwanking. The detail of the compositions is something which really stands out across the album’s six tracks. There are many segments woven together, but there’s a flow to each of them, meaning that each song feels like there’s a sense of progression, of evolution, rather than chopping and changing and packing in switches for the sake of unnecessarily showing off technical skills as so many metal acts are prone to. In this way, there is a sense that each song is a journey.

This is nowhere more apparent than on the final track, the ten-and-a-half-minute ‘Come Undone’ – which most certainly is not a cover of the Duran Duran single. They really take their time over this one, drawing out the most tension with a slow, solo picked guitar intro which paves the way for a monumental riff-fest, which – in an unexpected twist – transitions from being another Neurosis-style cruncher to something altogether more a kind of post-metal/grunge crossover.

As it tapers out, the silence gives pause to reflect: it’s not an easy album to process, because while it does sit broadly in the post-metal bracket, there’s a lot more going on, and it’s done in such a way as to seem natural in the transitions, when on paper, it shouldn’t always work. But why not? It’s music: there are no limits. Music may have become a commodity, because capitalism has conquered all, but at the heart of it, music can, when it’s not being used as sonic wallpaper or for marketing or cheap entertainment, be an outlet, and a medium by which it’s possible to articulate something beyond words. And this is what I get from False Haven: the sense that Vorder are a band compelled to create to have an outlet, and they don’t care whether it conforms to one genre or another. They truly do not give a fuck. False Haven is an album which had to be made, rather than being an album they thought they should make. And that’s what makes it such a powerful work, and as real as it gets.

AA