Vokonis

The Sunken Djinn – Vinyl // CD // DD

Ripple Music – June 9th, 2017

Reviewed by Andy “Dinger” Beresky

Vokonis is a stoner doom band from Sweden and this is their sophomore album.  The second release is often-times paramount in a band’s development.  There’s a widespread belief that a band has all the time in the world to write their first album, so that’s often why a band can release a stunning debut, but it’s the sophomore album that’s more telling of what a band is capable of in the long term.  I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate – some bands write and record their debuts very quickly after coming together, though I do agree that a band’s second album is often indicative of their longevity and ability to thrive in a crowded music scene.  There usually is more pressure on the band to deliver the goods, from fans, from their label contacts, as nothing spells success like a powerful follow-up to a promising debut.

I hadn’t heard of Vokonis before being assigned this review, so I went back and did some digging once I learned this wasn’t their first record.  They formed out of the ashes of a former project called Creedsmen Arise, so you know where their loyalties lie.  After a slight shift up in the lineup, they changed the name to its current moniker.  The newer name is apparently taken from some legendary king, though I couldn’t find anything to verify whether King Vokonis actually existed outside of the band’s private mythology.   In 2016, they released their debut on Ozium Records, entitled Olde One Ascending.  It’s a fairly standard album that largely follows the template for the genre: a power trio with a Black Sabbath and Sleep inspired sound, fuzzed out and tuned down for maximum thumpitude. Long, meandering arrangements punctuated by guitar solos, slower passages, and trippy atmospheres. Gruff, monotone vocals that sit somewhere between Fu Manchu’s slacker spoken word and (16)’s screamed sludge abandon, dark psychedelic artwork and lyrical themes.  If you’ve been into the genre for awhile, none of this should be particularly surprising or off-putting, well, other than that it’s been done to death.  Vokonis obviously aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel or do anything too wildly experimental here, just six songs of old-fashioned, stoned-out doom.

Still, the debut apparently made enough of an impact to land the group a record deal with the prestigious Ripple Music, and that leads us right into their aforementioned sophomore album, The Sunken Djinn.  Right away, from the very title, I already like it better than the debut.  Sure, the Olde Ones and Lovecraft are super cool and creepy, though how many songs can I hear about Lovecraft inspired themes before they just lose their impact and become another tired cliche that’s plagued this genre for nearly a decade?  Well, Muslim mythology and the story of the djinn is equally intriguing, a race that’s neither human nor angel.  They’ve always held a unique place in the heart of Arabic culture, both classical and contemporary,  this particular source material hasn’t been harvested to point of being completely fallow ground.  It’s refreshing to see a band looking outside the tried and true.

As far as the music itself, I like it a lot.  It takes everything that they did well on the first album and simply trims the fat.  It’s super meat and potatoes, not just in terms of the previous output, but in comparison to the stoner doom scene as a whole.  While this genre is often rife with excess, for better or for worse, Vokonis’s stripped down approach is a breath of fresh air.  My earlier comparison to Fu Manchu works well; just as the Fu’s stripped stoner rock to its essential bare-bones elements, Vokonis have done the same with doom (yes, I’m aware that Fu Manchu have been around much longer than the questionable term “stoner rock” has been in usage).  The songs are shorter, though still fully realized and revolve around a couple key riffs and musical motifs.  There’s still enough atmosphere, dynamics and variation to keep it all from getting too stale and one dimensional.  There’s some usage of odd, dissonant chords and phrasing to keep it from sounding too generic and regurgitated.  Although The Sunken Djinn still owes a heavy debt to all things Sleep and Sabbath, nothing sounds like complete cookie cutter cloner rock. On top of that, the album has a great coherency and flow.

The production is a bit tighter and cleaner than its predecessor, allowing for more breathing room and space within the songs.  This has the effect of making the material sound heavier and darker, with more menace and bombast. Even the artwork is more nuanced and ominous, as much as I like the cover of the debut.  In 2017, when we’re talking doom, it’s somewhat of an innovation to just keep it simple and straight to the point. Vokonis have essentially emphasized everything that I love about classic stoner doom, while cutting out the elements that have largely become redundant and cliche.

That’s not to say that Vokonis is totally free from some of the more irksome elements of stoner rock and doom.  I told you that I researched them a bit, and I did see pretty gratuitous displays of amplifier pornography on their Facebook page.  Maybe that floats some people’s proverbial “boats.” For me, if you’ve seen one Orange amp, you’ve seen them all, and we all know what they say about people with big amps.  I know that I’m generally inclined to extended rants and digressions, though I also like to tailor the format of my reviews to suit the album in discussion, so I’m going to take a page from the band’s playbook and keep today’s diatribe to a mere and brief five sentences.

I foresee pretty big things on the horizon for Vokonis.  They’re building a good deal of momentum for themselves in a short period of time, with a compelling and buzz-worthy debut, a hot off the presses 7″ showcasing a song from the new album, and the backing of a label that’s known to be extremely artist friendly and supportive.  This could very easily be their breakthrough album, it’s well crafted and immediate.  By all accounts they seem to be ambitious, hungry, and upwardly mobile.  Once this album drops and Vokonis take the show on the road, barring any unforeseen circumstances, they’re going to make quite the impact and leave a good sized crater of charred audiences in their wake….