Veil of Thorns - Necrofuturist - Mick Mercer Review

VEIL OF THORNS - NECROFUTURIST 
Inner-X-Musick

Scarified vocals sprawl across the densely packed shuffling ‘Thought Pollution Evolution’ and you can sense there’s an eagerness to be freshly mangled, the triphop and dark atmospherics come whispering and whistling, not gnashing or self-eviscerating. No ideas what it’s about but the mood is strangely contagious. When ‘Through The Fire’ also limbo dances under the tension-free guitar barbed wire you know we’re in for some fun, and this is another unusual but invigorating track. As our relieved and seemingly addled host guides us through ‘Standing’ it’s light, engaging and gentle. Then we fall into ‘The Vandals Exquisite Corpse’ and it gets a wee bit trickier. That’s a slithery mindwarp of a thing, the sounds clattering and rustling, only for ‘The Lifeless Trio Kept Playing’ to be an idyllic segment, and ‘Wailing In Glass’ warped rockist fare pootling along, gradually dispersing into sub-atomic ambient mulch. So, the whole world is here.

A brief ‘Waltz’ verges on blistered Americana, ‘Pleasure In Nightmare’ keeps circling, bathing in its own perspiration, before an equally intoxicating ‘Giving Ascent’ digs in deftly for some dancey machinations, with a discreet sense of fun rather than flashing the rhythm around. Here we are in fertile dark indie territory, both filmic and mood-enhancing. ‘Dancing Revelation’, of course, moves away sideways, lightly aggrieved instead of inclusive. ‘Let Loose Into That Good Mourning’ is an interestingly gloomy soundscape where the machines seem to have won but find themselves down in the dumps. ‘The Reflection’ is the opposite, a lazily beautiful twilight night sky, with ‘Deny Fascination’ just as inviting, for all the disguised vocal intent. Things have got looser for a while in the VOT world and relaxation does wonders.

They do appear to be dropping slowly into the abyss for the groaning ambient doldrums of ‘The Only One Left’, like whalesong at closing time. In the skittish ‘Die As One’ it’s all very clandestine and chilled, the energy locked down tight as it bustles past on an espionage-fuelled mission.
‘Entertainments Subsume Concern’ sounds like a panel show doomed to failure, and it does appear to sound like a repair man trapped inside a cathedral organ, trying to fight his way out.

We’re into gloopier electronic sounds as ‘Head Up Get Out’ wibbles around over a toxic bassline and we’re ushered out by ‘The Dead Channel’ which is more restrained but shadowy fare, vocals unwelcome visitors in an imposing room staffed by jazz-obsessed ghosts.

Definitely one of the weirder Veil Of Thorns offerings, because of its orderly approach, and really quite lovely.