Lord Vigo – Danse De Noir (Grandiose VHS Doom Metal with Robots)
Here’s something I’ve said a lot: “God I hated this at first.” Definitely said that here. I see “epic” used with anything, especially doom metal, which already has its own problems with pretension, and I just turn my head away. How dare you guys add epic to that? Are you crazy?! These guys are crazier than that, though, daring to name themselves off of a Ghostbusters II villain for the love of God are you nuts?! That’s practically a death sentence and Germany already has enough problems with power metal screwing that shit up. Oh, but Lord Vigo is far from done. They play live in spiked biker helmets, wear bargain bin skull masks like a 1970s teenager cosplaying Tombs of the Blind Dead and they’re obsessed with retro VHS culture, trash horror films, and sci-fi. If every proto-metalhead of the 1970s vomited role-playing games and paperback fantasy novels into a single cauldron while a blacklit witch turned it into a brew it would 10 billion percent end up being Lord Vigo’s newest album, Danse De Noir. And goddamn it to hell I just love it to death kill me.
This is truly an album lacking categorization or explanation. Lord Vigo has taken a risk few bands dare, which is a completely different direction from their previous work, but without sucking at it, and somehow all of what I said in the intro is how they do it. Danse De Noir has elements of doom, sure, but its solos are more controlled and skilled. The themes have shifted from trash horror to sci-fi, the only “epic” quality remaining a grandiose fan fiction rant about an android in the Blade Runner universe told through music. The vocals call out like a reanimated bard whose found their true calling and the looming, lumbering drive of the riffs move along like a burnt-out 1st edition AD&D junky high off of artificial popcorn butter at a carnival. That pathetic metaphor is about as close as I can get to explaining how this album feels and sounds. It’s grandiose, sweeping, yet calm and honest about itself, almost to the point that you swear you hate it, but goddamn it you just love it in the end. How a band with such obsessions can turn it into something cool is beyond me. They’re totally next level.
Written by Stanley, Devourer of Souls
Lord Vigo – Danse De Noir
High Roller Records
Cover Art: Peter Gric
4.5 / 5
