On Void Lustre, Australia's Hope Drone treats fans to a lengthy slab of black metal featuring their own take on the familiar combination of black metal and post metal. Unlike black metal-influenced bands that fully embrace atmospheric post-metal, on Void Lustre, Hope Drone stays closer to black metal orthodoxy, relegating atmospheric and post-metal elements to a supporting role. It’s an approach that, subject to some minor criticism, works well, although it may miss the mark for listeners who are seeking a more deeply atmospheric or introspective album.
Combining black metal with atmospheric or post-metal sounds involves an inherent difficulty: navigating the compositional tension between the two genres. Atmospheric metal and post-metal depend on the space and breathability of the music, while black metal, at least in its traditional form, tends towards suffocating sonic density. Charting a path between these two competing poles inevitably involves some degree of compromise.
Although they name check Deafheaven, Downfall of Gaia, and Wolves in the Throne Room in their promotional materials, Hope Drone keeps one foot more firmly planted in traditional black metal than any of those bands. Although there are certainly atmospheric moments on Void Lustre, for example on the superb opener, “Being Into Nothingness,” and the equally excellent “In Floods and Depths,” there’s overall not a lot of ambience, psychedelia, or extended post-metal structures on this album. What you get instead is intense black metal with pummeling blast beats, serpentine song structures, repetitive riffing, and tremolo-picked guitar leads—with elements of post-metal occasionally poking through the black metal barrage along with some brief psychedelic interludes. The post-metal influence is particularly evident in the lead guitar melodies, which are dripping with effects and have a certain introspective quality to their understated repetition. It also comes through in the vocals, which are more informed by hardcore than black metal.
But setting aside the handful of moments on this album where the band made a conscious decision to include an obviously atmospheric section, you get a lot of black metal: minutes and minutes on end of blast beats and tremolo. And unlike some atmospheric black metal bands that attempt to create a sense of atmosphere (even while blasting) by burying everything in a hazy mix, Hope Drone serves up a mix on Void Lustre that is clean, modern, and does a great job letting the listener hear the strong individual performances.
The natural result of Hope Drone’s artistic decision to focus on hitting the listener with lengthy assaults of crisply recorded black metal is that there’s not always a ton of space in the music for the psychedelic soundscapes or introspective excursions one frequently finds in post-metal. This isn’t a problem because the black metal is executed so well, but it is useful to know, particularly in light of the more dynamically-oriented bands that Hope Drone picks out as relevant points of comparison.
The most obvious criticism of Void Lustre is the length and repetitiveness of both the album as a whole and the individual compositions. Look, I get that the band has “Drone” in their name and repetition is part of their artistic approach, but it’s still important to maintain the listener’s interest over the course of the album, especially given the heaviness and the density of the music here. With Void Lustre’s five tracks over ten minutes and the total runtime of over an hour, it's hard not to wonder if a little more aggressive self-editing might have produced a tighter, better album.
But for anyone who is into black metal with just a bit of post-metal around the edges, don’t let the album's length stop you from checking out this very strong outing when it drops on August 30, 2019.
SCORE: 7.5/10
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