Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Vigilance
Label: Metal Tank
Release: year_month
Length: 38:43
Rating: 4.5/5
The output of the local metal scene this year is flat-out astonishing. Since January we’ve already had, believe it or not, seven studio albums, and I may well have missed one or two. Even better, most of them are seriously good records. The stats are wild, and we’re only a little past the first quarter of the year! Joining this top-shelf crop are Vigilance from Postojna, who, after their autumn 2011 EP Steeds of Time, now announce the end of the world like four horsemen of the apocalypse with their full-length debut, Queen of the Midnight Fire.
My opening sentence already hints at the direction Vigilance have taken, since the foursome toys with occult themes on this album, which the ominous piano intro of the first, title track makes clear right away. It sets up a dark, sinister atmosphere that hangs over all forty minutes you spend with the queen of the midnight fire. The band hasn’t just set a new lyrical and thematic milestone with the occult angle, they’ve nailed down their musical identity even harder. Vigilance have shaken off the Iron Maiden shackles that still plagued Steeds of Time the most and wrapped themselves in an infernal ring of sharp, personal songwriting. Sure, it doesn’t hide that Iron Maiden are still its biggest role model, but the potent brew is fortified by all sorts of influences, ranging from Black Sabbath and King Diamond through speed metal and even the extreme corners of black and death metal.
Thanks to that musical variety, and even more to the strong material and top-level instrumental and vocal performance, Queen of the Midnight Fire flows like the five rivers of the Greek underworld. Compared to the EP, Vigilance have moved the execution on the record up quite a few notches. The instrumental passages are far more intricate, and that’s where Vigilance really shine, marked by the varied interplay of the guitar duo and the roaring rhythm section. The guys prove that a lot of work went into writing this material: the songs are lively and dynamic, each has its own black soul, and there’s no sense of repetition anywhere on the record. A lot of credit goes to Gilian Adam’s varied riffs, which are aggressive one moment, speed-metal-fueled the next, and then hypnotically enticing like the queen on the cover. The excellent, well-thought-out solos simply build on the riff foundation, while the rhythm section doesn’t lag behind the guitar duo in the slightest. Anže Stegel’s wild bass lines make it clear that Steve Harris is his big idol, but the way his fingers walk up and down the neck and the deep rattle of the strings make for a phenomenal counterpoint to the guitar lines, despite (or maybe precisely because of) that. Finally, a bass on a Slovenian metal record (Gonoba might be the only exception) that sounds the way it’s supposed to! Tine Kaluža’s excellent drumming is right there too: totally his own thing, it accents the guitar lines but not only those, since the octopus-armed drummer is fast and precise everywhere, whether it’s hints of blast beats, varied fills, or thoughtful cymbal work that greatly enriches the band’s whole sound.
The excellent natural production only reinforces the atmosphere, since there’s no excessive artificial polish. The guitar riffs cut like daggers, the bass drum thumps like ritual drums, and the drums sound completely natural, with no trace of triggers or other effects. But despite the fantastic instrumental work, the centerpiece of the record is probably Jakob Rejec’s vocals, which show incredible progress. Jakob mostly stays in the mid-range, where his natural voice is utterly convincing and darkly alluring, and he takes the vocal performance to another level with stunning falsetto screams, plus nasty yet effective and convincing death metal growls and sharp black metal lines.
There are too many best moments to count, but here are the ones worth singling out: the epic opening title track, whose spine-chilling atmosphere is enriched by piano flourishes; the Lovecraftian, atmospheric What Lies Beyond…; the gang vocals in Night Terrors; the brilliant riff and solo excursions in Four Crowns of Hell and its black-mass section in the second third of the song; the atmospheric instrumental Poetry and the Gods, which would easily find a home in some Lynch or Cronenberg masterpiece; and finally the brutal Ritual of Death, which has now, after the Rager demo Eat Metal (2012) and the first Vigilance demo, gone through its third incarnation. These are just fragments of the rich sonic picture of Queen of the Midnight Fire, which, with its memorable, superbly written songs, fiery instrumental and vocal performance, and wicked, dark, piercing atmosphere, is like wandering the endless corridors of King’s Overlook Hotel in the cult classic The Shining. And like those creepy twins, Vigilance and the queen of the midnight fire tell us: »Come play with us…«
Queen of the Midnight Fire comes out tomorrow on Metal Tank, and the official “release party” goes down this Saturday, May 18, 2013, at MC Postojna.
Line-up
Anže Stegel – bass
Tine Kaluža – drums
Gilian Adam – guitar
Jakob Rejec – vocals, guitar
Rok Zalokar – piano
Production
Rok Zalokar
Tracklist
1. Queen of the Midnight Fire
2. Behind the Cellar Door
3. SpeedWave
4. What Lies Beyond…
5. Night Terrors
6. Four Crowns of Hell
7. Poetry and the Gods
8. Under Sulphurous Skies
9. Ritual of Death
