Words by Jon Garcia

Edinburgh-based progressive sludge/post-metal collective Dvne first made themselves known to metalheads with their debut album Asheran in 2017, which quickly earned them a spot on Metal Blade Record’s roster.

The quintet uses crushing, Mastodon-influenced guitar riffs mixed with celestial keyboards and atmospheres to take listeners on a journey through space and time.

Their sophomore album Etemen Ænka – and Metal Blade debut – released to their widest audience yet and was possibly one of the more underrated albums of 2021.

But it was clear the band still had another level to explore. As good as the nine-minute build up of “Towers” or the dynamic heavy-to-weightlessness of “SÍ-XIV”, Dvne was still growing into their sound, which excited both listeners and band members alike.

As they prepared to release their third album, Voidkind, on last month vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist Victor Vicart said the relentless jam sessions, refinement and meticulous attention to detail on their concept album helped the band step into their voice.

“I think it will build up on something we haven't done in the past and bring the band into a different light,” he said.

Vicart said the band learned so much from taking the songs from the studio to a live environment. The band – rounded out by Dudley Tait, Daniel Barter, Allan Patterson, and Maxime Keller – was so full of ideas writing their last album they ended up slightly overproducing the album. 

 

“We tried to put too many layers because we were just really inspired with Etemen Ænka,” Vicart said. “We ended up stacking things significantly. With [Voidkind] we started thinking, ‘This needs to work live.’”

This time around, they demoed every song before they went to the studio, and cut down the tracklist from 14 songs to eight. Instead of layering mountains of instruments on the tracks, they focused more on what would translate to the stage.

“This allowed us to give space to everyone, really,” Vicart said. “The drums are more dynamic on this album because there is more space in the mix. The guitars are more individual because we really wanted to address left and right distinction guitars. Same with the bass, the bass stands out proudly when it used to be a bit hidden.

“It’s a lot to absorb, but we really wanted every single song to stand on their own. That every song has a very strong individuality, and that's probably what we are the happiest about with this album.”

Lyrically, the album continues Dvne’s themes of science fiction meets religion. Voidkind tells a non-chronological story about the spawning of a religion and how it affects its followers until its last gasp. Vicart said they continue to be inspired by the stories they’ve told on previous albums, which cyclically informs where the band goes next.

“People ask us quite often, ‘Where do you start?’” Vicart said. “Do you start with the concept or do you start with the music? They both kind of happen. The songs are not finished when we're writing the concept, so the concept feeds into the songs.

Voidkind is a massive bite of an album. Clocking in at just under an hour, the amount of shifts and changes in the songs is a lot to absorb on one listen. But rather than overwhelming the listener, Vicart said Dvne’s intention is to give them reasons to keep coming back to the album.

“My favorite bands and my favorite records are records that I didn't maybe think much of to start with and then on repeated listens it becomes a favorite,” he said. “This album is a grower. Take your time with it. Take your time to digest it. We worked really hard on it to make this interesting and innovative in some ways. If this is your kind of style, I think it's a rewarding listening experience.”

KNOTFEST’s Jon Garcia spoke with Vicard about each of the 10 tracks on Voidkind, and how they weave a story about a burgeoning religion and its effect on the mind of its followers.

"Summa Blasphemia" 

 

“Summa” is probably the track we were the most excited to play. It's such an immediate, no brainer kind of song. It's a full on Mastodon guitar track, and I'm not going to hide it.

We knew that this was going to be the opener of the album for about six months. It's the first song we recorded on the album because it's just straight to the point. I really love the track.

Weirdly enough, it's the track I struggled the most to create with Dan [Barter, guitarist/vocalist]. We really struggled to find out what we were going to do with the vocals. We kept on going back to the studio to redo them because we were unhappy with them.

Vocals can make or break a song and sometimes you're really scratching your head, ‘What is the song telling us?’ But through refinements we ended up finishing it. It’s the first song we started tracking and the last song we finished vocals for.

Also, the theme of the song is pretty cool. I lifted the track title from a video game I was playing during recording, Blasphemous. Every time you die – which you die a lot – it says “Summa Blasphemia.” I was like, yep, that's gonna be the title.

"Eleonora"

 

A very different song here because it's more of a builder.

When we started jamming it was mostly a song that was a bass, guitar, and drums in the jamming room, and you can tell it by the song. The second guitar is there for harmonies and extra textures but he doesn't really add a lot rhythmically. Not like the first song, which is very much about the two guitars.

I think it was a song that I was the least happy to start with and it's now one of the songs I'm the most happy with. Everything just came in together really nicely. The vocals also elevated in an interesting way. I love that song, and the concept of the song as well.

The lyrics are about some kind of weird, seductive creature. Like a spider woman that's seducing people in their dreams. People start seeing stuff in their dreams and build this religion because they all have the same dream. This lady is giving them a mission: spread the world and go on a pilgrimage. It’s really the beginning of the story, because the album doesn't have a coronal chronological order. It's more like different elements of the story.

The midsection feels really dreamy. The vocals have this element of seducing, there's also these elements of power. Within the idea of religion starting, you've got to to impress so there are elements from the story that we can latch on to that helps us perform vocals better.

"Reaching for Telos"

 

The way we write music is usually we start with the foundations of songs, but we jam them a lot. The foundations have been pre-written by Dudley [Tait], our drummer, Allan [Patterson] our bassist, who also plays guitar on this album and myself on guitar and on keys.

We bounce on each other's ideas all the time as we play. We love improvising. I remember when “Reaching for Telos” started coming together and the main sections started happening, everyone felt the same way on how we wanted to approach it and build it up. It just keeps on progressing a little bit, a little bit. Then you come back to this very classic verse-chorus that you have at the beginning. It’s one of the most accessible songs on the album.

"Reliquary" 

 

Most of the time we have a scene change, a moment that just flips the switch. I think it's important. It's like a movie or a book you're reading, you are lying in the groove of it and there's something that happens that changes everything. I love that in music. I love when something somehow surprises you.

 We talk about it in the band as like a moment you're really looking forward to in a song, because that's what we do when we listen to music. Especially when it's good post rock, post metal prog-rock. Every time we write, we just try to find this little nugget of something that we can flip the song around.

But yeah, it's very much the case with “Reliquary”. The midsection is something so dark, and then you go into something that's just sad rather than dark. You know, more emotional.

"Path of Dust"/"Sarmatae"

 

It's the most Middle Eastern/Turkish/Greek/ Balkan inspired song we’ve done. I am an absolute sucker for that kind of traditional music.

We've been on tour with a Greek band called Villagers of Ioannina City, they’re a stoner rock band very influenced by this kind of music. Songs that were traditionally passed orally, they weren't written the way we will return a recording. They have a song for instance, a very ancient song, and people in the whole crowd were all dancing to it. It's just a song that is within everyone's collective imagination and has been there since forever for them.

 

 

So this song is about that really. “Path of Dust” and “Sarmatae” is people telling the story of a pilgrimage. People singing around the fire on “Path of Dust” about the story that will happen, and this is when “Sarmatae” starts.

“Sarmatae” is one of my favorite songs on the album. I wasn't expecting to be so happy about it, and it's one of the most fun tracks to play live.

"Path of Ether"

 

“Path of Ether” is more like a palate cleanser. The album is dense. We had this thing that Allan was noodling on the guitar, and I remember Dudley was really a fan of it. So it was like, let's make an interesting interlude. We just wanted to give a bit of air before going into something that is pretty meaty.

"Abode of the Perfect Soul"

 

We're very proud of that song for sure. I think it's just got so many different vibes, and there’s a reason for that: This song used to be two songs that we ended up merging into one.

What's interesting about it is that you switch from super heavy into something that's completely dreamy. There's four shifts, it keeps on shifting, and I really liked that because it shouldn't really work that well. But really all the sequences of that song, they just feel natural. It's just a big song with interesting buildups and interesting highs and lows and climaxes and stuff like that.

I also think it's one of those songs where we are putting everything we have out there, if that makes sense. lt's really like we can do all of this stuff, let's try to put it into a song. One of my favorite songs to play live, especially. It's a very fun song.

"Pleroma"

“Pleroma” is a weirder song for us. It was a surprise for us that the song happened the way it happens. But I also think it's the most accessible song; the most immediate for me anyway. It's kind of the DVNE-pop, right? Let's call it what it is.

What I like about it is actually the body of the song is a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge, but then there's this twist around it. This very cinematic intro and then this very cinematic ending, which is basically a reprisal of the introduction. Why I like it so much is because it's so cinematic.

To me the story it tells is super accessible, and you can immediately crystallize what the concept of the album is about. There is an element of transformation, and for us it's symbolic as well. When we were coming up with this album, we wanted to surprise people with the first single that came out. We wanted to make sure people understand this album is going to be different, and we also want to show two sides of it.

One side is: here's “Pleroma”, super accessible and cinematic. And, by the way, if you think we were going soft, here's “Abode of the Perfect Soul”.

"Cobal Sun Necropolis"

 

 

I think it is probably the most unique song we've ever written.

It's just weird, man. It shouldn't work. You’ve got this Neurosis vibe that comes and goes into the song, and then you switch to like a three part vocal harmonies in an Opeth kind of style. Then you go back to heavy Neurosis and then you finish with this kind of riff that's got like a weird bounce to it.

It shouldn't work on paper. I've tried to wrap my head [around] this song, why all this happened. It just happened because we jammed so much together, so then you end up making things that shouldn't necessarily work together and I think the song really does that. It just works well with the concept. We definitely knew we were going to close this album with this

We had this idea of buzzing from how bees survive during the winter. They gather around and vibrate. They also do that when there is wasp coming into their hive, and they go around it and they just basically cook them through collaboration. So we had this idea of like making something that's buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, and then it's just silence because it's the end of the story, really.

I like the fact that we had these ideas and we got inspired by that on this song, and it kind of just wrapped up everything nicely between concept and music. It's cool when you're able to create soundscapes around the music that fits the story as well, you know.

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Voidkind by Dvne is now available via Metal Blade Records. Order the album - HERE

 

DVNE is currently touring Europe with a handful of headlining dates remaining on the Voidkind 2024 Tour. Additionally, the band is set to perform at Hellfest in France next month. See the remaining tour dates below and the complete list of confirmed dates - HERE