Voodoo Bible - Seven Deadly Sins

Voodoo Bible is a self described new noir industrial electronic band founded by William Westwater (Fear Incorporated, Infra Red, and Exit Strategy) as well as Berwyn Waddon (Also of Exit Strategy). While not much is really available on the act as of now, they released their debut album on Crysella Records, and it's titled Seven Deadly Sins.

If you couldn't guess, the album encompasses and focuses on the seven deadly sins each in their own little song. Everything from Lust to Wrath is covered on this thirteen track, odd ball album. Mixed in are other songs, mostly that of the Hexperiment series, a well as a song titled right after the act themselvesx.

Lust kicks off the album and really sets the record straight for the forty two minute duration. Almost extremist, witch like vocals come along in two sets, really. One set sounds fairly masculine, but the second definitely has a more feminine tone. The actual music is hard to describe; random electronic noises perturbed by guitar underlying the senses. Experimentation is key in this act, and they do it fairly well.

There is definitely an ominous feel to the song overall, and it continues forth in Gluttony. Difference is that Gluttony continues into a more harder feel. Less electronics, more drums pounding away for a decent rhythm. Envy gives off a good mixture of both, but the divergent guitar work sets this one apart from the previous two.

And before I got too wrapped up in Satan's pleasures, the immoral thrill took a break and gave way to Hexperiment Number One. More ritual and focusing on chanting and a dark ambient atmosphere, I can only say that if these folks were to leap from crafting songs such as the previous to dark ambient, they would conjure up one hell of an album.

Alas, soon enough we were back to committing misdeeds with Sinner. Shocked back with more rock undertones with an overlay of electronic work and the same shivering vocals, it was another decent track.

Getting in on the fourth sin, Greed continued the trend. A nice bassline helped move it along, the lack of guitar allowing this song to have a more EBM sort of feel to it. Different, but not the best.

Hexperiment Number Two offered more of that chanting, but really felt more noisy than anything; with the amount of electronics dispersed randomly but effectively, this one did a fair job of breaking off from the norm.

Sloth was well represented in its own right, and, as the sin most associated with apathy and laziness, was musically interpreted well enough, going at a slower pace than most of the other tracks thus far. It allowed you to take in a lot more of the beats, with the vocals matching the pace.

Pride sort of followed on with the slow pace, and became a bit more spoken word than anything. The vocals and instrumentation didn't really seem to match all too well, and seemed to have more of a lower quality than before. So far, this one song didn't do much for me.

Hexperiment Nimber Three sort of had that same low quality gist to it, but it was done in a better fashion, making it resonate as if it came off a lost, but forbidden tape of a different age.

The song named after the band, Voodoo Bible, seemed more clear cut than the rest so far. Not bad, either. Wrath had a few numbers in it that weren't all too bad, the instrumentation getting a bit more savage than before. And, Hexperiment Number Four finished off the album with decent workings that were alright for the most part.

Through this, Voodoo Bible proved that they can create a sinister album altogether. Never sounding horrendous, there is still room to improve. I can say that the vocals were something that I've yet to hear from an album, so that should stay the same; perhaps it would be nice if they were more understandable. I wanted to listen to the lyrics, as they corroborated to a subject that I was interested in, but it was hard to really pick out what they were saying. The sound quality dipped from time to time, making the album unmatched in certain parts, but it wasn't anything to really ruin the experience.

With a bit of work and a cleaner quality, I'm sure this album could sound better. However, I'll be looking more towards their later releases to see what else they can come up with. I'll have a few songs off this one that I'll save for later listening, but not many. Jul 11 2014