Poland’s
progressive rock and metal scene has definitely been strong of late. In
the last year I’ve discovered some really great bands, particularly
Indukti and Riverside which have just blown me away from the Polish
scene. Turns out Poland doesn’t have just black metal and death metal
in their veins, but instead there are a good number of proggy dudes who
really dig the new wave of prog that has been pushing its way into
metal in the last decade. Votum’s second album is another one of these
Polish prog rock records that’s definitely influenced by neo-prog bands
like Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Anathema. In 2008, Votum released their
first album Time Must Have a Stop, which impressed some but left me
cold. Metafiction is the next step in the band’s development, but still
doesn’t impress.
Metafiction is an LP friendly 45 minutes of progressive rock that
is really meant to appeal to fans of the aforementioned bands. And
while it is an admirable attempt at creating the same kind of
intelligent, interesting music as those other bands it doesn’t have the
same kind of depth, originality and clean approach that the other bands
do well. While Porcupine Tree, Opeth and Riverside all are able to walk
the fine line between prog and pop music, which keeps the listener
interested in their songs despite them being long sometimes, Votum has
trouble with their songs feeling drawn out, simplistic and repetitive
at times. On top of that, this record is remarkably weak vocally and
especially lyrically. Vocalist Maciej Kosinski is remarkably talented,
but his voice feels like it doesn’t fit the music at all. He sounds
like he would be way more comfortable in a progressive metal band along
the lines of Dream Theater than this post-rock kind of progressive
rock. While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s sort of like rubbing
cloth in the wrong direction. It just feels weird after a while.
I truly enjoyed several parts of several songs, but there wasn’t an
entire song on the entire album that I found to be truly gripping.
Instead, the tracks slip through one ear and out the other back into
obscurity. The things that actually stand out for me are not the good,
but instead the bad. The lyrics are not very good, seeming oddly trite
and unpoetic at times, reaching their peak of bad with the final track
"December 20th,” which is a poorly executed attempt at writing about
synchronicity. The stuff that really stands out in a good way is when
these guys show off their metal influences, like at the beginning of
"Glassy Essence” or in "Stranger than Fiction” which is easily the best
song on the record. But unfortunately these things are too few and far
between to keep things fresh.
This could be a case of sophomore slump, as this is the band’s
second album. Or, I could entirely be missing the point as I’m really
not a fan of Porcupine Tree, either, who Votum has quite a lot of
similarities to. But really Metafiction is not the impressive display
of musical and pop sensibilities that we have witnessed from other
Polish prog bands over the last few years. Hopefully they’ll hit their
stride with their third album, but this is probably one you can pass on
and not be missing a whole heck of a lot.
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