Album Review: Space of Variations - XXXXX
Reviewed by Carl Black
Smashing out of the Ukraine, Space of Variations come hot on the heels of Jinjer who have blazed a path out of Eastern Europe and onto our summer festival posters. Space of Variations must be hoping that their home country becomes the next hotbed of metal talent. If it does, then they are in the perfect position. Are they in the right place, at the right time? Even if they are, in this day and age, you’ve got to be able to play. Having one good song, correct geography and a nice costume just won’t do it.
The album is a modern, fresh sounding metal effort, bookended by two slabs of hard-core . Starting with 'Room 57' and ending with a Ukrainian titled track, its straight up hard-core with a complete riff break/beat down and a nats cock of clean vocals thrown into the mix. The middle four songs have an electronic intro flowing into a massive, technical/djent style riff. Again, some clean singing and a breakdown and your pretty much done with this six track mini album.
Raw emotion features heavily, Whitney Houston once sang “I get so emotional baby”, she would have been proud of these guys on here. As I’m finding with a lot of contemporary metal, they all appear to have no skin… everything hurts. Take the track 'Slowmo', it starts with an outpouring of emotional song writing before diving headlong into a passionate charged tirade of metal. Not a lot of laughs here. They may not ever play with NOFX or Lawnmower Deth and if you’re into having an emotional roller-coaster, you’d do worse than to look here.
There is plenty of potential in Space of Variations. Lots of opportunity for videos, singles and social media coverage. Definitely a market for this music and Space of Variations will be opening up festival tents soon. If I’m in attendance at one such event , I’ll be wearing my wellies and handing out tissues to the crowd.
Listening to this album... It’s been emotional!
Space of Variations album 'XXXXX' is out now via Napalm Records
