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Angry Metal GuyVölur & Cares – Breathless Spirit Review
By Twelve
“Avant-garde doom metal from Canada. Do I really need to say more to pique your interest?” So said I a little under five years ago, closing out my Things You Might Have Missed feature for Völur’s Death Cult. The Toronto-based project launched itself to the top of my end-of-year list in 2020, owing to their expert fusion of an impressive blend of sounds and genres primarily rooted in doom metal. Wielding the violin like a sledgehammer, Death Cult featured intelligent, clever compositions that really impressed me in 2020. Now, at last, they’re back for their fourth full-length, Breathless Spirit, with one key change: a collaboration with Cares—UK/Canadian producer James Beardmore—whose influence aims to transcend an already-impressive trio to Valhallan heights. However do they fare?
But first, a correction: in reviewing Death Cult, I noted that “the guitars do not dominate, nor do they crush the listener; instead, they unsettle, distort, and act as anchor for the vocals and electric violins that make up the true meat of the music.” Völur has no guitarist—only Lucas Gadke (Blood Ceremony), who plays bass (in addition to vocals and piano). The electric violins are indeed the “true meat of the music;” Völur create their uniquely haunting sound through intense distortion on Laura Bates’s violin and viola,1 giving them a surprisingly heavy metal basis to work with—certainly I’d never have thought there’s no guitar in the blackened doom mania that is “Windbourne Sorcery II,” and I’m still not 100% sure I believe it. Previously, I compared the group to a gloomy “Apocapyse Orchestra meets King Goat” project, but, in hindsight, Apocalyptica might have been a better base point to use.
Realistically, though, none of that matters because Völur is unique in too many ways to build adequate comparisons, and Cares has only strengthened that position. Where Death Cult emphasized the heavier, doom metal basis of Völur’s material, Breathless Spirit leans more classical, a change that highlights the incredible range of the music, passing also through doom metal, black metal, folk, jazz, and drone along the way—and all of it done with “just” a violinist, bassist, and drummer (Justin Ruppel). What’s extra interesting (on an already very interesting record) is that Cares contributes piano, synthesizers, theremin, and textures. His production adds layer upon layer of grimy, modern darkness that contributes heavily to the metal feel of Breathless Spirit. It is, put simply, extremely experimental. It also works magnificently.
From the classically-inspired2 “Hearth,” Breathless Spirit’s instrumental intro whose motifs just keep reappearing, to the towering doom metal conclusion of “Death in Solitude,” Völur are as engaging as they are unpredictable. I mentioned that “Windbourne Sorcery II” has the album’s blackened highlight, with Bates’s utterly unhinged shrieks atop a steady alarm of urgency from her violin. That same song has an almost funeral buildup, a chilling passage I compare favorably with Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper3. The title track is the highlight for me; Gadke’s roars are front and center, and all of his vocals have depth and command to them, recalling Barren Earth’s On Lonely Towers.4 Guest vocals from Amy Bowles (ex-Hollow Earth) are a fantastic counter to his baritone cleans, and the brief improvizations a third of the way in is chaotic and delightful. You can dance to the haunting middle section, but it ends on a sense of heavy, epic urgency. Whatever style they try, Völur & Cares can’t help but create something beautiful. Much credit also belongs to Ruppel, whose measured drumming keeps Breathless Spirit grounded in a steady, doom-laden theme that serves it well.
I’ve run out of words, but there’s so much more to say. Breathless Spirit is a hard album to describe with any level of brevity. It explores worlds I’ve only hinted at here, and is much stronger than the sum of its parts. It’s not perfect—”On Drangey” is perhaps a touch too long for my preferences—but it hardly has to be. Breathless Spirit should enshrine Völur and Cares as experts in the experimental. Equal parts beautiful, haunting, and dark, Breathless Spirit defies my vocabulary—you simply must listen for yourself.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Blackthrone Productions
Websites: volur.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/VolurDoom
Releases Worldwide: August 8th, 2025
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