It’s a dark and stormy night (don’t all great reviews start that way), and we’re on our way to Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms to see Vola as they support their excellent new album, Friend Of A Phantom. A sold-out show, as we arrive there’s a queue already stretching down towards the road, with fans eager to get inside in time for The Intersphere, who are playing at the decidedly unfriendly hour of 6:15.
Unfortunately, German prog rockers The Intersphere are hampered by technological gremlins throughout their short set, at one point reduced to simply standing around, with even their microphones cut off. In spite of all this, the band deal with their issues with humour and professionalism and, when they are allowed to restart, they turn in a tight, heavy performance that has the crowd hooked. With the set list including a crunchy Anyitype (getting things back on track), and the impressively epic The Great Delusion, the band make a host of new friends, and, despite the brevity of their truncated set, they make one hell of an impression. Here’s hoping they return soon, for no artist could have done better in the circumstances.
Next up, we have former Delain singer Charlotte Wessels, who is currently supporting third album The Obsession. With a fair proportion of the audience clearly here for Charlotte, a hush falls as the band come onstage one-by-one to a lush orchestral backing. Such things can be a double-edged sword for, inevitably, once the band kick in, the sound levels shift dramatically – as is the case here. Nevertheless, the band tear into opening number Chasing Sunsets with plenty of energy, recalling Mother Earth-era Within Temptation in the process. With Charlotte putting her heart and soul into the performance, it’s clear that much of the audience are behind her every step of the way, and the venue echoes with cheers throughout.
Opting for a more human spectacle than many of her symphonic peers, Charlotte proves a disarmingly honest host, opening The Crying Room with a semi-humorous tale of performance anxiety, while the track itself has some nice airy rhythms and even a flute passage. Following the satisfyingly chunky Vigour and Valour, which has a bruising pulse, Charlotte closes the set with the brutal The Exorcism, which even admits some death growls into the mix, emphasising her versatility as a vocalist.
A more than capable singer, an engaging stage presence, and with a diverse range of songs, Charlotte Wessels has stepped away from the symphonic tag that could so easily have followed her from Delain, and now stands poised to build a career where her wonderful voice takes her wherever she wishes to go. With that in mind, while tonight is an impressive outing, there’s a sense that this is just the beginning.
By the time the magnificent Vola take the stage, the somewhat oversold Rescue Rooms is too full to easily move around and the temperature has soared. With the new album showcasing a tougher edge to the band’s sound, Vola have become a surprisingly metallic proposition and, while they can surely wax ethereal when the mood takes them, there’s a muscularity to the riffing that results in a sizable pit that only sees to grow over the course of the performance. With the stage flanked by LED towers, somewhat reminiscent of Nine Inch Nail’s stage sets circa Year Zero, Vola make their ambitions clear and, on the strength of tonight’s set, it’s clear that they’ll soon outgrow venues of this size.
The set opens with the mesmerising I don’t know How We Got Here, an atmospheric piece full of lush synth patches and light-touch percussion. With monochrome lighting casting the stage in shadow, it’s a suitably enigmatic start, easing the listener into Vola’s unique world. Such benevolence does not last. Wrong footing the crowd, We Will Not Disband may emerge in a prog haze, but something heavier lies beneath, opening up the sound and propelling the gig forward with some seriously chunky riffing. Asger Mygind’s vocals, meanwhile, recall Patrick Duff of Strangelove by way of Muse’s Matt Bellamy, only serving to underscore the range of which he is capable. Pausing only briefly to enquire as to our energy levels, Asger then leads us into the phased djent-ish riff of Stone Leader Falling Down – an explosive track that sets the venue alight. It’s typical of Vola that they seem not to notice the chaos they unleash, as they simply dig into the music, their behaviour on stage the easy interaction of brothers in arms, no matter how energetic the pit. Nor is that the extent of the energy levels deployed this evening. Unleashing the absolutely blistering These Black Claws, a highlight from Witness and an unstoppable live gem, you could argue that the track is Vola in excelsis, with the band pairing clean vocals and hip-hop elements with a riff that Gojira would be pleased to call their own.
Finally noticing the potentially combustible atmosphere, Vola move to cool the temperature with the lovely Glass Mannequin, a track that finds us lost in a world of reflection. A highlight of the new album, it reminds us that Vola don’t need sonic firepower to trigger an emotional reaction. That said, with such moments of calm few and far between, the audience are wise to take the opportunity while they can, for it’s soon followed by the stuttering electronica of Alien Shivers, the hulking great riff setting the pit alight before a typically elegiac chorus triggers a singalong that nearly eclipses the volume pouring from the stage. It’s followed by Gutter Moon (from the band’s impressive Inmazes debut), which still sounds vital some 9 years after the fact, before the band deftly segue into the EDM-flavoured Break My Lying Tongue which, with its ferocious conclusion, would seem to be as heavy as things get. It isn’t, however, and Head Mounted Sideways takes things up another level still. It makes for exhilarating viewing and yet, for all the weight the band deploy, they never lose sight of the vital melodies and emotional core that makes their music so very special.
With the night racing past, the band bring Charlotte Wessels to the stage for a bruising Cannibal, her contribution bringing shivers to the spine and making you wonder whether a collaboration may not be on the cards for the future – certainly the interaction on stage is both spontaneous and authentic, with Charlotte and Asger perfectly complementing one another’s performance. Then there’s the lovely 24 Light Years, in this context sounding more cinematic than ever. It made for a lovely set opener on the previous tour, but it works just as well in its current position, providing room to breathe before the industrial-flavoured Bleed Out – part porcupine tree / part V.A.S.T., takes over the room. In its wake the band keep things satisfyingly heavy, wheeling out recent single Paper Wolf, its jabbering synth lines and haunting chorus marking it out as a fan favourite in the making.
With the night nearly over, the band briefly mention the supports before unveiling the hard driving singalong Straight Lines. Despite their protestations that this is the final track, the cheeky smile on Asger’s face tells us that it isn’t, and after a suitably raucous round of applause, we are treated to one last song in the form of Stray The Skies – a final blast of impressively metallic prog, before the band leave the stage for real this time.
It’s hard to believe that Vola have already racked up 18 years and four albums, but part of that disbelief is down to how fresh their material sounds. Drawing from myriad influences, they have done a remarkable job of forging their own identity, not least thanks to Asger’s impressively versatile vocals. Ambitious, open minded, and engaging – Vola are a band to treasure, and it’s hard to imagine they’ll be constrained by such tightly packed venues on future tours.
