Artist: Vong
Country: Vietnam
Label: Diabolical Vitriol / House Of Ygra
Formats: Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2025
Although the digital version of Vong’s second offering was already released digitally and on CD through the band’s Bandcamp page and House Of Ygra respectively, the cassette tape by Diabolical Vitriol followed slightly later. Honestly, also the reason why it landed on my radar a little later as well, but ‘Phạn Hàm’ is simply too good of an album to let it slip by unnoticed. Besides, you don’t come across (Black Metal) bands from Vietnam every day, so a little extra support seems appropriate to me. So, better late than never I would say…
To focus a bit on the production first, I can say that ‘Phạn Hàm’ is a firm step up from the previously released material, but it is done in a way that remains both recognisable and appropriately tied to the aesthetics of the Raw Black Metal genre. In fact, Vong hasn’t put any effort in trying to be reinvent the wheel, progressive or to be even very different from what we have heard over 666 times already. ‘Phạn Hàm’ is firmly rooted in the true Darkthrone tradition, as laid out by their unholy trinity in the first half of the 90s.
The cold and hateful Black Metal bears a lot of dynamics brings you right back to the mid-90s where many were catapulted into the world by the cold energy sheer and strength of Darkthrone’s musical legacy. Fairly simple, slow punk riffs poured into the shrillness of the mandatory old school Black Metal sound, but that is where the magic comes to play: it is the excellent song crafting that really gives this sort of music the spark it needs to get airborne. Just like Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, early Dødheimsgard and Ved Buens Ende as well as the old German and Polish Black Metal showed: it is the power of the riff and the dynamics in which it is presented that builds the tension and strength of true Black Metal. There’s tons of bands doing the same or already did that three decades ago, but when it’s done right, it’s don right. And that certainly applies to Vong.
Connoisseurs of “true” Black Metal should do themselves a favour by checking out this Vietnamese one-man band, it definitely deserves to be heard.
