Vorga – Beyond the Palest Star (Review)

This is the second album from Vorga, a German black metal band.

With 2022’s Striving Toward Oblivion Vorga made a notable impact in the world of melodic black metal. Now they’re back with Beyond the Palest Star, which delivers another sci-fi trip through 43 minutes of sharp melodic aggression.

When compared with Striving Toward Oblivion, Beyond the Palest Star takes the Vorga template and develops it further. The song lengths, on average, have trended up, and the band have expanded on their atmospheric and emotive content, making for songs that are engaging and boast a more textured and nuanced depth. The music is arguably less complex, yet this has allowed Vorga to focus on mood and feeling to a greater extent. All of which is to say that Beyond the Palest Star is expressive and evocative in its blackened delivery.

Vorga have refined their songwriting so that these new songs really hit the mark, showcasing the band’s grasp of dynamics, structuring, and memorability. Vorga’s music still benefits from a good deal of fast and vicious content, with bladed riffs and serrated screams, but there is more variety in this record and changes of pace. The band seem more comfortable with slowing down, and in the places where this occurs they further reveal their confidence with the style that they are quickly bending to their will. Aspects of melodic, atmospheric, and symphonic black metal collide to create music that makes itself known in no uncertain terms.

With emotive melodic feeling and synth-enhanced cosmic grandeur, there is a majesty to Beyond the Palest Star that’s richly immersive. The mixture of atmosphere and aggression is infectious, and Vorga have produced a cracking set of songs. So many of them are rich in hooks too – tracks like The Sophist are just achingly catchy.

The latest Vorga has connected with me to an even greater degree than their strong debut did. Beyond the Palest Star is accomplished and compelling, and if this style of black metal speaks to you the you won’t want to miss out on this.

Essential listening.