Vediog Svaor
In The Distance

Vediog Svaor is a trio composed of Alex Lifeson from Rush, Syd Barret, and Wrest from Leviathan: the three meet every Tuesday afternoon to jam together in the twisted mind of Van Vadermark, the brilliant personality behind the French project Vediog Svaor, which over the years has become a one-man band.

The three musicians mentioned at the beginning are the masks that interact during this controversial and fascinating performance of 'In The Distance' (2001), sometimes stealing the scene, other times intertwining visionary and singular dialogues. This crazy yet unknown solo project mixes elements so heterogeneous that it seems like a punch in the face on the first listen, only to fascinate more and more with each listen, note after note.

To clarify the initial reference, it might be helpful for the reader if I delve deeper into the music and the solutions Van draws from history and his imagination; the group's offering is a homogeneous and balanced concentration of Black Metal, Prog Metal, and Psychedelic elements, without any of these three components becoming overshadowed or mere decoration; there is great variety in the album that allows each soul of the music to integrate and find its own space: thus, one may encounter a track of just over a minute of black fury interspersed with jazzy breaks and tempo changes, only to then find oneself at the center of a much longer piece characterized by melodic arpeggios that then flow into visceral metal passages.

One aspect I particularly enjoyed about this album is the "strength" that characterizes every note: here we find ourselves in realms opposed to the Depressive, here everything has a raging and spirited soul. The album, especially in the parts most inspired by extreme Metal, has a deeply "sludgy" attitude in the fullest sense of the term; the riffs, screams, and psychedelic inserts seem like strokes of pure color on the canvas: it feels like facing one of the survivors from Kirchner's paintings or a disfigured face of Szymkowicz. The matter here too falls in pieces from the canvas.

This aspect might seem paradoxical since I mentioned a key figure of the Depressive at the beginning, seemingly in contrast with the album's atmospheres. However, it's important to remember how Van has always declared in interviews to be an admirer of the Californian Depressive wave (Xasthur, Leviathan, Draugar), profoundly different from the European one, which is more depressing and doomy; the Americans have instead a visceral and "vital" approach to the matter, sweating passion and sentiment from every pore: just reading Xasthur's lyrics makes it clear that suicide is more a metaphor than a desirable act for Malefic, who is seriously committed to describing the anger and revenge that ooze from his isolation. This same delirious and extremist approach is perceivable among the notes of In The Distance, a metaphor of mental distress first and then expressed physically.

To this metal soul corresponds another equally imaginative but decidedly backward-looking; the Progressive element is present in two different ways: on one hand, the main reference is to what was done in the '70s by Rush, with an obvious nod to 2112: numerous time changes that distinguished a track like "The Temples Of Syrinx", and other specifics, from distortions to electric breaks, closely recall the Canadians.

The other strand that is taken up is the music straddling the '60s and '70s when the transition from pop/rock to progressive had not yet been completed for most bands: we therefore find diverse naive and effective cues, from both the humorous/experimental and compositional sides; there are many calm moments in the album that recall what Pink Floyd did in the Barrett era (or he did solo) or even just the psychedelic pop of the Beatles (such as in "Strawberry Fields Forever").

The album thus is composed of these three souls, and it's almost possible to define it as "Psychedelic Progressive Black", but you need to listen to this masterpiece to fully grasp the album's potential: hearing a seventies intro explode into a distorted riff accompanied by a very grind-like vocal; or a black riff stopping after a few seconds to give rise to a truly suggestive stop and go game; or the transition from scream vocals to clean, melancholic, and retro ones.

If you add to this a perfect production and superior technique, I don't think you will have any reason to distrust: at least give it a listen.