Band:	Vola
Album:	Friend Of A Phantom
Style:	Djent, Progressive metal
Release date:	November 01, 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Cannibal [feat. Anders Fridén]
02. Break My Lying Tongue
03. We Will Not Disband
04. Glass Mannequin
05. Bleed Out
06. Paper Wolf
07. I Don't Know How We Got Here
08. Hollow Kid
09. Tray

Vola are sticking rigidly to their 3-year album cycles, and Friend Of A Phantom arrives with the same regularity as its predecessors; it also comes with a regularity in style that's slightly surprising considering the band’s evolution up to this point.

The Danish quartet are one of the most compelling bands to emerge from the djent ‘scene’, at least in part due to being only partly tethered to that particular niche. This especially became the case with sophomore album Applause Of A Distant Crowd, which emphasized catchiness and accessibility to great effect, and Witness, which experimented outside of metal with new electronic and hip-hop sounds. After the great leaps forward from one album to the next, Friend Of A Phantom is the first release from Vola that feels like a ‘2.0’ version of the preceding album, but this is not necessarily to its detriment.

One area in which it does deviate from Witness is in the presence of harsher vocals, which pop up briefly on the likes of “Break My Lying Tongue” and “Bleed Out”. They’re more present on opening track “Cannibal”, but in this instance they are delivered by guest Anders Fridén of In Flames. For me, this is a very successful collaboration and “Cannibal” is probably my favourite song on Friend Of A Phantom; the heavy djent riffs hit the mark, the subtle synth soundscapes in the verses (the second of which is delivered by Fridén) produces a compelling the vibe, and the dual-vocal chorus is instantly memorable and is backed up excellently by the rhythm section.

Beyond “Cannibal”, there’s a reasonable variety among the following tracks, from the brash synth hook and upbeat energy of “Break My Lying Tongue” to the sedate anthem “We Will Not Disband”. An even more dramatic change of pace comes in the form of “Glass Mannequin”, an almost ambient vocal vehicle during which Asger Mygind’s tender singing is accompanied by just faint synth background sheen, aside from some electronic beats right at the end. These beats effectively lead into “Bleed Out”, which kicks off right at the start with trap rhythms. This is the longest song on the album, and uses that length to traverse understated verses that hark back to “These Black Claws” from Witness, voluminous choruses, and meaty djent breakdowns.

In addition to being the lengthiest track here, “Bleed Out” is also the closest that Friend Of A Phantom gets to experimentation, but even that experimentation is mainly a reprise of similar branchings out on the last album. Otherwise, pretty much everything on the album has a degree of familiarity to it. Still, there’s an alluring warmth to familiar Vola that means that “Paper Wolf” is still a very rewarding song, from its tense verses to its emphatic bridge. The other main late-album highlight is closing track “Tray”, a slow, synth-heavy, tender effort that patiently works its way towards climactic moments in its choruses.

When I compare Friend Of A Phantom with Witness, this new release does feel like a bit of a smoothing of the formula, with it avoiding the lows that its predecessor occasionally sunk to. Conversely, it does somewhat struggle to reach the peaks that each previous Vola album managed to hit, with “Cannibal” the only song that threatens to rival the highlights of the preceding releases for me. Friend Of A Phantom is steady, accessible and enjoyable; it would be nice to hopefully get a bit more evolution or added inspiration next time out, but for now, this album will do fine.