Apparently this third album from the Norwegian band V:28, is the final chapter of a “grand strategy” to develop and tell a story during three albums about the demise of mankind; well just by reading that in some press releases and other reviews, I was a little turn off, because I hate missing parts of a trilogy, but then again this is not a movie so the music will have to speak for itself in order to make the album more than a “curiosity” based on the lyric line that is following.

VioLution is a weird and very welcome variation of death/black/industrial/melodic metal… yes it sounds like I’m just taking genres and putting them out there, but the truth is that the album dose have aspects of all those genres; raw simplistic black metal guitar lines come to play during some sections that help introduce more melodic and elaborate parts that can even sound like a Katatonia track if you listen close enough. The vocals apart from the very nice and sweet segments were it totally changes the direction of the song is split into a blend of black shriek and not very deep growls but death metal vocals after all, been the melodic Goth style the most remarkable on the record, just listen to “The Absolute” (not sure if that is one of the Guest appearances, I couldn’t verify in what songs did V:28 had their guest participate in).

The industrial part of the album is mainly given thanks to the programmed drums and the atmospheres created in some tracks by a synthesizer; this doesn’t really transform the production into one of those cheap attempts to give “brutality” to the record by simply placing some hammers hitting steel in the background, the industrial side of VioLution is very precisely placed and helps the futuristic idea of the album get some momentum.

Overall this is an interesting, out of the ordinary production, but for some reason it left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction, I waited and waited for the album, for the songs to either speed up their charge or surrender to the nice elements displayed in the most melodic track “The Absolute”; instead they keep their mid tempo rhythm, that after a little while it just makes you stop paying attention.