SYDNEY’S The Veil is yet another band to have weathered the storms of upheaval and inactivity to return as strongly as before.
Recorded across various sessions with different line-ups over several years, Departures comes more than a decade after The Veil’s previous album and shows a further flowering of their dark muse.
Grey Metal is the perfect opener, setting up the mood and stylistic nature of Departures from the outset as speedy black metal riffing shifts to more expansive melodic Gothic territory. The Veil veers into full Goth mode with Everything We Knew’s haunting melancholia while the New Wave beats and jangly bass of Providence evoke vibes of New Order and The Cure. The slow build-up to the chunky metal of The Machine Breathes sees the band exploring their more symphonic side while the plaintive acoustics of Weightless again recall The Cure and an influence from The Church.
Even with all the New Wave, Goth and other aspects, Departures is still very much a metal album at its heart and a solidly cohesive set of tracks for a work recorded over such a timeframe with two different groups of musicians. Che de Boehlmer’s dark tones toll like doom across The Veil’s intricate and evocative musical framework, pulling together an immaculate album of expressive gloom that transcends genre expectations.
