In 2018, the self-titled debut album of Yianna Bekris’ solo project called Vouna showed the prodromes of the possible birth of a reality capable of marking the future of the darkest and most evocative doom. This was not only due to the imprimatur provided by the Weaver brothers (Wolves In The Throne Room) during the recording phase, but also and above all due to an approach that was anything but predictable and that left several compositional paths open. The new full length Atropos confirms those positive impressions, reinforcing them thanks to a writing even darker and less inclined to atmospheric openings, which however are not less especially in the second part of the work. Bekris draws sap from the Cascadian propensities of his mentors and this combines a wise dose of doom from the traits funereal, only rarely comforting, and wanting to be picky the only flaw of the album is to keep separate the two souls making them preponderant in their respective halves of the work (of the five tracks, in fact, the central one is a short instrumental). So it happens that, at least judging from some of the first responses received by Atropos, the ugly duckling funeral that appears in the beautiful Grey Sky and What Once Was is considered an element of redundancy, unlike the more oblique and restless strides of the first two tracks Highest Mountain and Vanish (mottled by the scream of Nathan Weaver): a matter of viewpoints, although I think it’s wrong to evaluate the goodness of this work with an analysis track by track rather than as a whole. Basically, Vouna live up to their promises of a few years ago, giving us a magnificent album blessed by the crystalline talent, not only vocal, of Yianna Bekris.

2021 – Profound Lore Records