Popdose Review

By: The Six-Tongued Hellgoat
April 17th 2013

VON - Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves Album Review

Ritual Thrust Into The Profane Maw of Churning Filth

If you know metal, you know VON and/or the mastermind behind VON, VENIEN. VON was one of the great old school black metal bands having existed initially from 1987-1992. In that time, they only released some demos but became a favorite underground band. VENIEN started the project back up in 2010, as well as a VON VENIEN solo name (and original member Goat, also started his only project, Von Goat). Since that point all VON has done is pretty much rehash old material, re-releasing the tracks from 20+ years ago. Even on their first LP in 2012, “Satanic Blood”, they remade a lot of the old demo tracks. And that’s where the problem has been for the group. VON almost became a mockery of themselves by showing almost no creativity in their “new” music.Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves is the first part of a trilogy of records from VON and this is really the album that needs to help them rebuild their image. They’ve created new songs on this record which is a big key to moving towards the future. Long gone however is the raw black metal that won them their following decades ago.

The music they create now is dark and creepy but produced well. VON’s song structure reminds me a lot of Burzum. They take a riff and repeat it ad nauseum throughout the song, often very minimal in nature but also very precise. Every note seems to have a purpose behind it.

Some of the riffs on the record are great “Hands of Black Death” while others sound kind of gimmicky “RawRot”. The production tends to different across the album as “MONSTER!” is recorded extremely loud, but the following song, “DevilWhore” is less polished and therefore doesn’t flow very well together. What they really need more of are songs like “Black Eyes.” The six-minute album closer is slow and dark, plodding along in a creepy horror flick kind of way. Most of the album is mid-tempo to fast paced tunes, which butt heads with each other on occasion.

The Hellgoat tends to like the repetitive minimalism of the music overall but at 54 minutes long, the album does drag a little by the end. But the key here once again is that VON has come up with something new finally. essentially starting a new chapter. Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves is at least a promising start to the trilogy if not good enough to warrant multiple listens.

Rating: 7/10

(Source: popdose.com)

VON - Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves (Open Edition) (Digital Album)

vVurMzflessshhh Publishing

Buy album

Cat/Sku#: VR D0009 Artist: VON Title: Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves (Open Edition) (Digital Album) Volume: Dark Gods Vol.I Audio Format: Digital Publisher/Distributor: Von Records (USA) Digital Release Date: 2013 Read more

1

They Have Come (Digital Edition) 3:23

0:00/3:23
2

Ancient Flesh of The Dark Gods Feat. D & C (Coffinworm) (Digital Edition) 10:09

0:00/10:09
3

Hands of Black Death (Digital Edition) 6:14

0:00/6:14
4

Dark Gods (Digital Edition) 2:59

0:00/2:59
5

MONSTER! (Digital Edition) 5:32

0:00/5:32
6

RawRot (Digital Edition) 7:40

0:00/7:40
7

DevilWhore (Digital Edition) 6:02

0:00/6:02
8

iAmInHuman (Digital Edition) 6:03

0:00/6:03
9

Black Eyes (Digital Edition) 6:07

0:00/6:07

vvurmzflessshhh publishing

VON - Dark Gods: Seven Billion Slaves (Open Edition) (Digital Album)

vVurMzflessshhh Publishing