Vofa are a doom metal band from Iceland, and this is their debut album.

Vofa contains just three tracks, but each is over 12 minutes in length, making for an album with a total duration of 37 minutes.

This is dark and haunting music, rich and textured. It’s very atmospheric, and carries with it great beauty as the lengthy songs unfold in all of their grandeur. This grandeur is not always blatant and epic, however, as the band have a clear understanding of nuance and subtlety, and can be quite understated when they want to be. Either way, the music is gorgeously harrowing doom metal that takes influences from many areas, all with the aim of producing affecting and emotive music that hits where it hurts. This aim they achieve magnificently.

Vofa aren’t restricted to one form of doom metal, oh no. Funeral doom, melodic doom, death/doom, stoner doom, progressive doom, post-metal doom, drone doom, sludge doom…it all gets included in one way or another across the album. The band seem to be quite happy to mix and match and merge whatever they feel like, as long as, ultimately, it’s doom. Each song here is an exemplar of quality doom, easily capable of crushing the listener with sonic weight, or draining them with life-sapping emotion. This anonymous group are apparently drawn from people active in all manner of different bands and genres, but whoever they are, they clearly know a thing or two about crafting this sort of music.

Slow, miserable, and desolate, yet also luxurious in its cold warmth and bleak vibrancy, this album is thoroughly enjoyable, immersive, and extremely satisfying. It offers a lot to discover, and many details only reveal themselves after multiple spins. Vofa is the type of doom album that doomheads just adore. As such, this is essential listening for fans of the style.

Don’t miss this.