Album Review: 1914 - Viribus Unitis
Reviewed by Sam Jones
Potentially one of my last major records of the year to release, 1914 finally return with their fourth full length record titled Viribis Unitis, curiously a personal motto of the late Austrian-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, again tying into the band’s First World War theme. Formed out of Lviv, Ukraine, in 2014, 1914 have risen sharply becoming one of today’s greatest blackened death/doom bands whose particular interest in the First World War have garnered them prestigious reputation for brutality and melancholy alike. Releasing Eschatology Of War a year later the band received warm appraisal though their 2018 opus, Blind Leading The Blind, was hailed by many, myself included, as their breakout masterpiece and one of the best records in years. 2021 saw them release Where Fear And Weapons Meet, a worthy successor, but four years later 1914 unveil perhaps their darkest, most cathartic release yet: Viribus Unitis. Whilst earlier efforts displayed war’s futility and apathetic slaughter, Viribus Unitis sees the band take a more personal route as they highlight camaraderie and human endurance forged through fire this time round. It’s always a treat when these guys release a new record and with a November 14th release date in mind once more alongside Napalm Records, I was ecstatic to see what 1914 dug from the trenches this time.
As 1914 have with every record they’ve released, Viribus Unitis opens and closes with these early twentieth-century styled gramophone pieces and given 1914’s emphasis on immersion they’re a nice addition to get us on board right at the start. Then the insanity begins. Much like the outbreak of war all promise of glory and vanity are soon dashed as the band unfurl a sea of blast beats and hideous vocals at us. The band’s blackened onslaught is revered as of late yet this record seems to have chiselled their guitar sound away until there’s nothing but scythes remaining; this isn’t blackened death metal anymore, its the executioner’s axe, the flurry of machinegun fire, its the bayonet plunging into Typhoid-ridden flesh. Its as if 1914 recognise the gap between records and thus intend to make up for lost time for there are few moments where their intensity relaxes.
I do believe this is the absolute greatest the drums have ever felt on a 1914 record. The undiluted ferocity these bass drums are subjected to staggers me; one would think they’d be falling apart owing to the punishment their drummer puts them through. The band have always featured massive soundscapes, in their bid to capture the fruitless horror of industrial war, but Viribus Unitis raises it to another field of slaughter by enveloping their record with the drums. Their riffs command your attention enough already and then you have the bass drumming and blast beats behind them, though the volume and pounding they unleash will make you think they’re before the guitars. The performance with the double bass is amazing as one could easily pick out every minute kick thrown into them, and its in feeling every kick that continuously amplifies the overall performance.
I adore the structure 1914 applied to this record. Never throughout their releases have they been so explicit about taking us through the First World War as chronologically as they have here. Opening their record in 1914, carrying us through the years and underlining tracks as specific events and battles, only to close out not in 1918 but the year after, where many veterans found themselves no longer at war though the trenches remained mentally. The band have always focused attentively upon the human cost of warfare and what the advent of industrialised war entailed for those yet to behold it. There has long been an emotional crux within 1914’s performance where though we receive everything expected in blackened death metal, there’s another layer to their sound that oozes periodically. It feels apt because the band earn these sombre, harrowing moments through the utter deluge of devastation their sound otherwise propagates. If they completely forsook the morose quality their performance would still be worth checking out but it’d lack that signature quality that’s made 1914 such the standout act. Throughout the record too, there seems to be a subtly increasing despair too as tracks progress with the years; this is especially telling when you reach the back half of the record and 1918 is split into a three-track arc, potentially reflecting the absolute apathy and despair victims of the war felt felt towards it.
Listening to 1914 really drives home how totally commanding frontman Dmytro Kumar’s vocals are. I honestly couldn’t imagine anyone else helming the band vocally for his demonic, snapping, snarling delivery is simultaneously enormous as his cords bellow to overcast skies whilst he also brings his delivery to earth with sustained notes when the band need to emphasise the emotional, human tragedy. His performance is less a delivery and more a ravenous ripping of sinews as he metaphorically tears into the waves upon waves of cannon fodder the antiquated tactics of the time forced men to undergo. The vocal tone is one where you don’t need to hear a slew of lyrics pronounced to feel their weight; the very minimal can be performed and you’ll believe the savagery implied. So many other vocal deliveries will attempt imparting this visceral style yet fall short of the intended effect; it comes wholly naturally to 1914. But the inclusion of clean vocals is a surprise find. Only towards the very end do they appear and I believe they’re only incorporated there to represent voice of solitude breaking through, as our vocalist finds himself utterly alone, where every ounce of camaraderie he shared decays in open graves, decorating barbed wire, the ghost of their laughter poisons his dreams, though as one experiences the final track based in 1919, that cleaner delivery doesn’t necessarily mean all suffering is past; its simply transformed, found new trenches to fill, a fresh rut to rot.
In conclusion, Viribus Unitis is easily the best work 1914 have released since Blind Leading The Blind. Never has the band’s performance felt so biting and thrust in your face as they unleash every ounce of horror and bloodshed they have at you, though this isn’t some fantastical realisation of war’s potential; we need remember this is a strongly grounded approach to war because this happened, this industrial cleansing of human souls was the desired effect the powers that be wished for, they just hadn’t bet on the opposing side doing just the same. In many ways its their most introspective record to date considering how our unnamed narrator finds himself in the record’s closing pieces, peeling away the facade of survival’s grace as a time without war feels a far-flung dream. For those who go to war, one simply does not knows its end, they will do battle with it until their dying day. 1914 have always been ferocious but rarely has their sonic assault appeared so blatantly visceral, immersing you thoroughly in the same conditions men in their millions ate, slept and lived through. This will be another major step for the band when Viribus Unitis releases and deservedly so. Ypres. Somme. Passchendaele. Verdun. Just a handful of names synonymous with grinding slaughter. But how many of the dead do we truly recall? It is that question 1914 pose to us, whether we wish to face it or not.
