Releasedate 25.09.2024
Release the River is a Dutch blackened death metal band from Leiden. They have been around since 2021, originally starting out from the leftovers of Illusionless. The band previously released the EP Spirit Corrupt, but now it’s time for a full-length. Virtues Of The Vile is available on Spotify since Wednesday the 25th. However, the album was officially released with an album release party on Friday 27th in Nobel, Leiden. Let’s dive into this dark album together.
Virtues of The Vile
Virtues Of The Vile spans a little over 45 minutes and is inspired by the rings of Hell, mentioned in Dantes’ work. This theme has of course been covered by many artists. Release The River is giving it its own twist, leaving a lot of its lyrics open for interpretation. While most of the tracks offer a view into the band-members state of mind and worldview, the band specifically wants their audience to read their own stories in their music.
Virtues Of The Vile is packed with emotion, energy, and haunting melodies. Being a trio doesn’t affect the impact this band makes at all. On the contrary; it might just enforce that impact. These guys know each other through and through and can cohesively write music that’s both technically complex and easy to follow. That makes for a high standard and an album in which it’s hard to find flaws. In most albums, there are one or two tracks you tend to skip. With Virtues Of The Vile, I can’t really name one. However, I do have a few clear favorites, which I’ve played considerably more than the rest. But we’ll get to that.
As most bands do nowadays, a few of the tracks were released prior to the album. This is the case with the opening track ‘Dark Mirror Of The Soul’. The album opens with a drum intro before diving headfirst into a black metal-inspired riff. Release The River doesn’t come to play, and they grab you by the balls right from the start. Behemoth or Dimmu Borgir are the names you’ll be thinking off when listening to Virtues Of The Vile. Dark Mirror is a particular groovy track, which will for sure get your head banging.
Another one that was released prior to the album release is Enthralled. Remember I mentioned Dimmu Borgir? If you haven’t picked up on that reference, you will definitely notice that on this track. Much more melodic than the previous track, and also more room for bass riffs. Double grunts add another layer of evilness to the track.
Born of Misfortune has some pretty groovy death riffs in there as well as well as some chuggah chuggah. As with most of their tracks, while it at first feels more like melodic black metal, the death metal riffs find their place a little later in the track, and seamlessly the band takes us from one genre to the next. For the track In Crimson Rays, the band actually recorded a video (check that on Youtube or just scroll down). While technically this track wasn’t released on Spotify, we heard it before the rest of the album dropped. It’s pretty evil, with nasty, nasty raspy grunts. Zeno actually has quite a broad spectrum in his grunts, ranging from super low growls to the more raspy black metal grunts. Jeroen also takes on some of the grunt parts and they complement each other nicely. For this track as well; the main riff is mainly black metal, but the chuggah groovy riffs are never far.
The Great Fiery Entity is one of the few tracks that actually have a fade-in and more layers than just one guitar. Again, this might have been one of my favorite tracks on the album. The main melody catches you right from the start and the wave of sound just crashes over you and drowns you in a wave of emotion like only black metal can. Lethean Sorrow just piles more energy on top, being maybe the fastest track on this album. You have to respect Mark (the drummer) for this track, ‘cause it’s just an endless stream of blast beats, at, I don’t know, maybe 200 bpm. Luckily he gets a bit of a break towards the middle of the track, only to finish strong with more blastbeats.
Unbound starts off like a black metal walz in ¾, and that rhythm gets enforced by the main guitar melody. The low grunts on this track are a nice break and complement the almost manic guitar melodies. Every band should have a ballad on their full length, and this probably counts as theirs.
Reflections is a prelude to From The Depths and features a bit of spoken text as an intro the the final track. The longest track is also the most complete of them all, ranging from nice melodic breaks to pounding blastbeats, haunting clean vocal harmonies, and groovy riffs. It’s rightfully the final track of the album, feeling like a Magnus Opus the band had been working towards. But there’s no denying it here; Release The River is mainly a black metal band, ‘cause this would definitely qualify like that in my book. In the end, they cleverly return to the drum intro from Dark Mirror Of The Soul at the end, gearing up for another play-through of Virtues Of The Vile (I know I did).
Having heard the album before speaking with the band about it, I was impressed with the sound quality of their latest release. Even more so, after learning this is a DIY production by the band. From recording to production, Release The River did everything independently, with drummer Mark at the helm. They for sure have all the talent they need, cause many professionally released albums don’t reach the level Virtues Of The Vile is at.
Final Thoughts
Virtues Of The Vile is a great debut album by Release The River. Having heard this recording, I was actually amazed that they were able to play this with just three members. Even more so when I saw them performing it live during their album release. The black metal influence is definitely strong in their music, so much even that I might label it just black metal if it were up to me. I love those dark vibes, and my favorite track, though hard to choose, is probably In Crimson Rays. But honestly, there are only great tracks on this album, so feel free to spin any of them.
Want to learn more about Release The River? Check them out on their Facebook or their page in our database. Or, head over to Youtube for our interview with the band.
Tracklisting:
- Dark Mirror Of The Soul
- Enthralled
- Born Of Misfortune
- In Crimson Rays
- Avarice
- Great Fiery Entity
- Lethean Sorrow
- Unbound
- Reflections
- From The Depths
