Votum - Satellite - Song Review - Atmospheric Metal from Warsaw, Poland
Votum is a dark atmospheric metal band from Warsaw, Poland. They have a cinematic approach to the genre, combining hard and soft elements such as loud distorted guitars and acoustic ballads in the same body, creating a genre-bending take on heavier progressive rock.
Today we are taking a look at Satellite which is the opening track of the band’s previous album, titled :Ktonik:. This album, still to this date, is the most popular release Votum has made. There usually are a few milestone releases in a band’s life, and I feel like :Ktonik: is definitely one of these milestone albums for Votum. There is no doubt that the album’s production has a major role in its success. The album, and its opening track Satellite, was mixed by David Castillo at Ghost Ward [Katatonia, Opeth, Bloodbath] and mastered by Tony Lindgren at Fascination Street Studios [Paradise Lost, Kreator, Leprous] and they did a great job.
Technically Satellite has top standards in production. The headroom of the song is very high, it makes a heavier song like this one very pleasant to ears, i feel like even a casual listener who is not very familiar with the genre could enjoy this song. It’s always good to see a band put their music production and sound quality at the foreground, spending thoughts and their budget on quality production, and I am glad to see that the band’s efforts aren’t wasted in return, the song has almost half a million listens on Spotify, and its video is a little below 200K views on YouTube as I am writing this review.
Arrangement wise, lead vocals are at the centerstage for the most of the song. Singer Bartos Sobieraj is masterfully singing the song with a clean voice, and shows his darker character when he distorts his voice from time to time, adding tension to the song’s overall cinematic feeling.
Talking about cinematics, the music video for Satellite accompanies the track beautifully. It is mostly shot around a volcanic lake formation, and colored to reflect a dark autumn twilight. We see cuts of disturbing images such as a crawling centipede and dark blood dripping, blended with soothing images of a nightsky and lake, other than the band members themselves. The band draws influences from a variety of genres and that is reflected in the video as well. I interpreted the red fractal glitches as a reflection of their electronic influences and the film burn as their more analogue/classic influences. While it isn’t a masterpiece, it flows and matches great with the song.
When I take all these into account, I’d like to say that I enjoyed listening to Votum. I would love to see their song satellite as the opening sequence of a supernatural thriller series that keeps you on the edge of your seat, even the music video for the song hints at that.
Please go ahead and check out the links below if you’d like to find out more about the band, follow them on social media, subscribe to their channels to show your support, and not miss any upcoming releases.
In conclusion, Metalhead Community Team congratulates Votum for their amazing work, Satellite and wishes them the very best in their future careers. Thank you for reading.
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