VOLA: 24 Light-Years of Sound and Storytelling
While there’s plenty in the progressive vein with a distinct style, there are none quite like VOLA. Never resting on their laurels, their latest album Witness is yet another delve into many different stories, as well as new and uncharted melodic places. We caught up with Asger Mygind about musical freedom, interpreting human experiences and exploring outside of genre.
VOLA’s work has always been outside of the box when it comes to expectations. Be it MESHUGGAH levels of technical heaviness, or more subdued and melody driven sounds, VOLA’s ever changing sound comes from tapping into an emotional heart. It’s the subject matter that dictates the sound, and therefore no two pieces are alike. A most notable experiment on this album is the song These Black Claws, which incorporates a hip hop beat and rap vocals over their heavy sounds. “It’s nice to show different aspects of us on this album. It feels a bit higher intensity than the last. The hip hop thing, it’s all new and really exciting place for us to go,” Asger tells us. “The verse was one of the first things that came for that song. It was cool to sing over that part, but it felt like it would be cool to have hip hop over that. I think there’s a lot of similarities between groove metal and hip hop. You can move your head in the same way, hip hop can be really heavy too but in a different way. So, it was really appealing to have rap vocals. The universe we were trying to create, it just felt natural.”
With there being no boundaries for the places VOLA want to explore, it means that there’s plenty to delve into. “It’s not very conscious, it’s whatever inspires. There’s always once sentence from the demos that lyrically survives into the full track, that’s sort of the basis for the song. I like to write from a character’s point of view, because that’s an interesting place to be. You can be in any world you want to be; you can create characters with different personalities.”
The music that VOLA creates is very centred on story letting, in getting into a character’s head and finding a new angle to view the world from. From song to song, you enter a new headspace, with something alarming, frustrated, mournful or aggressive driving the tone and the lyrics. Even the album name and artwork works as a realm of interpretation and world building. “The album name was very much inspired by the image. It’s not something we had in mind beforehand,” Asger explains. “It could look like an eye, that the album itself the witness; It could look like something that’s burning, so that you looking at the artwork are the witness; It’s there in the lyrics also, people witnessing relationships dissolve in different ways. It felt like a good word to associate with this album.”
The album has a scope that ranges from their signature heaviness that was a big part of 2016’s Inmazes, while others songs have a more subtle approach while still maintaining those rhythmic intricacies more akin to previous album Applause Of A Distant Crowd. Third single 24 Light-Years is one such example where not everything is immediately apparent. “That song was born from Adam’s drum beat. What I like,” he goes on, “is like some bands that I grew up with like PORCUPINE TREE, that way of including elements of the song that are interesting to your ear, that you might not catch fully on a first listen but that will grow for you the more you listen. At the same time there’s a simple song in it that could be played on an acoustic guitar. That’s often the goal with the song writing, to have that instrumentation with a simple song on top.”
The band have a reputation for not staying inside any externally set boundary lines, only working to the rules they set themselves. It makes for fascinating listening and a very exciting career to watch unfold as these talented musicians explore their sound and it’s endless possibilities. “If we don’t explore those different sounds and places, it will get really boring,” Asger agrees. “It has to be relatable. What matters most to us is that the song writing is really strong, that way we can decide if we wrap it up in a metal or heavy rock or rap context. Essentially, the primary goal is to write something catchy and the production and sound can be anything really. I think we’ll continue to explore that. I don’t think there’s a limit to how we can make things sound, as long as were happy about the melodies and there are hooks in there. It feels very exciting to explore those different sonics.”
Witness is out now via Mascot Records.
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