Hailing from Russia, Vesssna is a gothic metal band which has just released their debut album on CD. Почти Святая translated as Just About Saintlike was originally unveiled in 2018 but as sadly so many encounters from the band’s part of the world it escaped our ears as those of a great many others. With thanks to vocalist/guitarist Marianna Lukianova who got in touch, the CD release has brought band and album to our attention and now we urge you all with a keen ear on gothic and dark metal to go explore.
Vesssna was formed in 2016 by Lukianova and keyboardist Marina Scherba, the pair previously part of Fright Night and Mea Vita. The next year saw debut EP, Улыбка Свободы/The Smile Of Freedom released with Почти Святая following 12 months later. As the album soon reveals, that gothic metal tag upon the Moscow band only goes some way to describe their sound, dark rock and atmospheric enterprise aligning with more classical essences to add greater flavour and depth to its creative body. Its songs are sung in the band’s national tongue but come with a certain drama and suggestion that makes imagery an easy quest for the imagination, the emotive and dramatic quality of Lukianova’s voice potently adding to that quality.
From the opening lure of Scherba’s piano, the album and first song Весна had ears to attention, their temptation swiftly joined by dextrous rhythms and eager guitars. It is an immediately contagious affair only pulling attention closer once Lukianova’s rich tones and the song’s atmospheric breath expand the adventure. With electronic and melodic enterprise aligning with sonic and rhythmic dexterity, it all woven with increasing prowess, the song simply blossomed to get the album off to a captivating start.
In many ways the track set the template for the release but only one aspect of its creative character and the band’s imagination as soon proven by the album’s graceful yet intensely powerful title track and the following Вспомянувши Меня, Заплачешь, the second of the two a melancholic seduction with an air of loss in its breath.
Both songs further bear the different hues in voice and music which makes up the Vesssna sound as in turn does the sprightly but chilled У Морозного Окна. With wind swept atmospherics suggesting, the imagination was swiftly across a snow bound landscape. Melody and vocal harmonics shared further suggestion and that is another enjoyable aspect of Почти Святая, interpreting its intimation and creative prowess into adventures without understanding its lyrical themes.
Through the more rock ‘n’ roll tempered Дать Себя Сломать and the acoustically woven Уйти Нельзя Остаться we found ourselves only more involved physically and mentally with the album, the following Воскресенье / Небытие a darker serenade which just as potently seduced especially as its infectious charms evolved into a mercurial and magnetic slice of melodic rock.
Completed by the gentle sway and melodic romance of К Тебе, another track which revels in a different shade of the band’s flavoursome sound, and the dark almost ominous beauty of the electro bred, atmospherically descriptive and wonderfully theatrical Секунды there is no denying that Почти Святая had us enthralled throughout.
Vesssna is a band which deserves wider attention and the CD release of Почти Святая with luck will be the spark; a generous moment of anyone’s time bringing certain reward.
Почти Святая is available on CD and digitally now @ https://vesssna.bandcamp.com/album/just-about-saintlike
https://www.facebook.com/Vesssna/ https://www.instagram.com/marianna_vesssna/
Pete RingMaster 28/03/2021
Copyright RingMaster Review
Categories: Music
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