Vesperal — Conqueror of Emptiness
Opening with “Guiding Hand”, whispered vocals, rain and a deep drone immediately present you with a dark and sinister atmosphere before “I Am The Silence” begins and we move immediately into vintage Death In June / Black Tape For A Blue Girl territory: Male vocals, guitar and occasional keyboards.
There’s a place for neofolk, but sadly it’s getting somewhat played out. Minor keys and not much else do not the apocalypse make. Quite frankly this sounds better when the guitars are removed and you are left with the rain!
By track three we may as well have Douglas P guesting on vocals because this is almost Neofolk by numbers. Don’t get me wrong, its all very nicely produced, and yes there are elements that go beyond DIJ’s template: the occasional additional instrumentation and guitar parts and the heavily delays vocals and the monolithic amount of reverb. But, I can’t get away from opening sequences of guitars, lack of drums and the feeling I’ve heard this before.
I do like Neofolk; I just can’t see what these bands are bringing that hasn’t gone before. It’s somewhat derivative and that’s what’s letting it down. Hopefully as they evolve they’ll allow their influences to stay in the distance rather than be worn on their sleeves.
I would say many of the key neofolk projects like DIJ are played out, in fact their last few albums have been awful. Vesperal are at least honing their craft around the classic period of Neofolk, but there’s nothing ground breaking about this. It’s the Same old, Same old.