VOICES

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal • United Kingdom

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Voices biography
Formed in 2011, Voices are a British blackened death metal band from London, founded by members of Akercocke during their indefinite hiatus. Created with the intent to play avant-garde music without regard for genre boundaries, Voices began as the project of Akercocke's Sam Loynes (guitars/vocals), David Gray (drums) and former member Peter Benjamin (vocals/guitars), with producer and bassist Dan Abela completing the ensemble. Their live lineup is occasionally buttressed by Celestial Sanctuary guitarist Matthew Adnett and drummer Nicholas Barker of Liquid Graveyard and Shining.

Signing to Candlelight Records soon after their conception, Voices would go on to release four distinct full-length LPs and one EP of their potent brand of post-punk-infused extreme progressive metal, a style not far from their primary band and familiar to fans of Talanas, Ashenspire, Hath, Code and A Forest of Stars. Lyrically shaped by the daily experience of working-class struggle in London and touching on themes of alienation, sexual frustration, obsession and general ill mental health, Voices explicitly distance themselves from Akercocke's Satanist perspective, "interested in trying to decipher the world that surrounds us," to quote Loynes.

A series of long improvised rehearsal jams resulted in 2013's LP Voices From the Human Forest Create a Fugue of Imaginary Rain, influenced by the 2009 Gerard Johnson film Tony. 2014's sophomore release, London, is a nebulous concept album and demonstrably more ambitious work than their tentative debut, inspired by Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage, The Who's Quadrophenia, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair and its film adaptation as well as J.G. Ballard. A bleak and cinematic hour-long work, London is narrative-driven and atmospheric with spoken word interludes telling the story of a nameless male protagonist who "undergoes a gauntlet of obsession, abstractions, and insanity [...] in a cold and unforgiving London." 2018's Frightened featured Voices harnessing the sound of groups like Bauhaus, the Cure and Katatonia, attempting more conventional song structures in a conscious attempt to write "hits."

After a brief period of silence, Voices reappeared in 2021, having signed to Church Road Records. An EP, An Audience of Mannequins, and its follow-up album, Breaking the Trauma Bond, were released later that year, with Voices returning to the earlier, heavier approach of their first two records and adding an exponential degree of...Formed in 2011, Voices are a British blackened death metal band from London, founded by members of Akercocke during their indefinite hiatus. Created with the intent to play avant-garde music without regard for genre boundaries, Voices began as the project of Akercocke's Sam Loynes (guitars/vocals), David Gray (drums) and former member Peter Benjamin (vocals/guitars), with producer and bassist Dan Abela completing the ensemble. Their live lineup is occasionally buttressed by Celestial Sanctuary guitarist Matthew Adnett and drummer Nicholas Barker of Liquid Graveyard and Shining.

Signing to Candlelight Records soon after their conception, Voices would go on to release four distinct full-length LPs and one EP of their potent brand of post-punk-infused extreme progressive metal, a style not far from their primary band and familiar to fans of Talanas, Ashenspire, Hath, Code and A Forest of Stars. Lyrically shaped by the daily experience of working-class struggle in London and touching on themes of alienation, sexual frustration, obsession and general ill mental health, Voices explicitly distance themselves from Akercocke's Satanist perspective, "interested in trying to decipher the world that surrounds us," to quote Loynes.

A series of long improvised rehearsal jams resulted in 2013's LP Voices From the Human Forest Create a Fugue of Imaginary Rain, influenced by the 2009 Gerard Johnson film Tony. 2014's sophomore release, London, is a nebulous concept album and demonstrably more ambitious work than their tentative debut, inspired by Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage, The Who's Quadrophenia, Graham Greene's The End of the Affair and its film adaptation as well as J.G. Ballard. A bleak and cinematic hour-long work, London is narrative-driven and atmospheric with spoken word interludes telling the story of a nameless male protagonist who "undergoes a gauntlet of obsession, abstractions, and insanity [...] in a cold and unforgiving London." 2018's Frightened featured Voices harnessing the sound of groups like Bauhaus, the Cure and Katatonia, attempting more conventional song structures in a conscious attempt to write "hits."

After a brief period of silence, Voices reappeared in 2021, having signed to Church Road Records. An EP, An Audience of Mannequins, and its follow-up album, Breaking the Trauma Bond, were released later that year, with Voices returning to the earlier, heavier approach of their first two records and adding an exponential degree of experimentation.

- Gordy, June 2023read more