Last year Take Over And Destroy released one of my personal favourites of 2013, so the news that they were ready to go with a follow up to Endless Night so soon was quite the pleasant surprise. Vacant Face is the sound of band fully hitting their stride, and of course Endless Night was excellent, but this new record feels like a completely different band. The energy is at the next level, and the songs themselves are so much more fully formed than on the previous record. That’s not taking away from Endless Night at all; rather, Take Over And Destroy are one of the few acts which learn and evolve and progress from record to record instead of throwing out the same old shit over and over again.
Vacant Face features all that we loved about Endless Night – the meshing of black metal, thrash, some sludgy moments – but most of all, the melody that seeps into the horror lifts it another realm entirely. “Terminal Burrowing” has a jaunty angle to it that slips into a doomed, gothic phase while “Deep End” follows and takes a more sultry, rocky path. Their blackened take on rock and roll is a joy to experience, and the band take on many different forms during the record. “The Fly is Awake” is all curious synths and ambient soundscapes – like a John Carpenter movie soundtrack – before “Attrition” gets all serious and gloomy, with a track that begins in anger and then moves to close out the record on melancholy guitar work.
Vacant Face will be self-released on August 19 but in order to show just how bloody good Vacant Face is, we’ve got an exclusive preview of the track “Split Screen” for you to enjoy.
You can pre-order Vacant Face here, along with some treats and past releases. Lovely.
