Album Review - The Way Of Ancients (Volcandra)

The Great Metal Debate Podcast

Welcome back to The Great Metal Debate podcast. Its Xander with another underground metal release. Today we will be looking at the Louisville based melodic black metal band Volcandra. This is their 2nd full-length studio album titled The Way of Ancients which comes out on March 1st through Prosthetic Records. For this review, I decided to go back and re-listen to their 2020 debut Into The Azure as a way to compare the band’s previous work with the current release. Is it a step up or step down? My answer is that The Way of Ancients is leagues superior than the debut. The opening track "Birth of the Nephalem" eases us in with a calming guitar riff for the first minute and 20 seconds before knocking us down with the sudden blast of heavy music. The winding guitar riff that follows is an earworm that will have you playing air guitar. Not to mention the noticeable fluctuations in the Dave Palenske's vocal pitch "Fouled Sanctity" is a fast very groovy head bobber that has a mellow riff in the middle of the song that reminds me of some older bands in the scene. This is because guitarists River Jordan and Jamie DeMar work very well together when it comes to sounding very lively. I love the creepy piano intro for the next track which is titled "Nemesis Confession". Once we hear the old bell, this song becomes a furious, straight forward black metal song. It is certainly one of, if not the fastest song on the album musically. Not the fastest vocally but we'll get to that one later, believe that! Drummer Mark Hargrave continues the heavy rain of blast beats in "Maiden of Anguish". He provides this only in moderation for an enjoyable black metal listening experience. Mark has the proper hand eye coordination to use each and every drum and cymbal on his kit for just the right amount of change up. "Seven Tombs" is another song with a soft and calming beginning but if you have been following the pattern so far, you know that won't last long. There's a lot of lyrics that are thrown at you at full speed followed by some group vocals. There was a part where a guitar solo would be in full swing but was interrupted by the vocals coming back too quickly. "The Blackened Temple" is the fastest and blackest black metal song on this album and also my favorite. It’s an unrelenting banger. The whole song is fast and even the slow down halfway through all the chaos is still every bit as amazing. Dave spits out entire paragraphs worth of lyrics with a hyper speed delivery. There is so much to say about the musical structure of the track "Not Even Death" as it can be all over the place in the best possible way. Its unpredictable with a lot of twists and turns in the guitar riffs. I believe its best not to spoil this one, as it should simply just be listened to. I can describe it but I'd rather you just hear it for yourself. Last we get the album title track "The Way of Ancients". Definitely the longest track but its among the best this fantastic album has to offer. And because I haven't credited him yet, Andrew Casciato has done a terrific job of tying the music together with his bass playing abilities throughout this entire record. My final thoughts about this kick ass underground metal band is that I hope they play a show in Nashville sometime soon. If not, I'll host a show with them this summer with plenty of supporting local black metal bands in the Tennessee scene. Believe it or not, Tennessee has a lot of underground black metal bands, many of which would welcome Volcandra and another great Kentucky band like Bihargam. I can't recommend this one enough. Mark your calendars for the 1st of March because you're going to want to purchase both the digital copy and CD. I believe they are currently accepting pre-orders for The Way Of Ancients on their Bandcamp page. These guys deserve your attention and I'm going to give them a score of 7.5/10.