After NonAnthropgenic and SoulSavior, V:28’s trilogy is apparently now complete with VioLution, which basically continues their industrial black-ish metal tone that still imbues a sort of modern Enslaved meets label mate Havoc Unit in a blackened industrial visage.

The thing is, it’s still just relatively uninteresting as nothing really ever ‘happens’ or peaks on the album anywhere. There are riffs, there is programming, there is robotic rasps, there are appropriate futuristic samples and warbling, beeping, buzzing interludes that all create the expected wartorn, smoke filled wasteland of a bleak psot apocalyptic wreckage, but song wise it’s a barren, lifeless landscape.

Admittedly, while more controlled and restrained than many industrial black metal acts (where the Enslaved reference comes in), the patient, building nature of the music, rarely exudes an urgency typically associated with black metal, rather relying on a more ominous and foreboding atmosphere. Even when the guitars do ‘kick in’ and a song morphs into a guitar based cacophony, such as “Shut it Down” or –its still a fairly rudimentary foray into black metal, just littered with the expected industrial , futuristic elements, and generally a more mid paced, deliberate, machine like affair.

As with the previous releases, there’s a couple of guest spots, notably from Trickster G/Garm (Arturus/Ulver/Borknagar) on the Arcturus like “The Asolute” and programming from MZ. 412 (G.G.F.H.) throughout, but none of it makes any of the tracks truly stick despite the palpable sense of despair on tracks like “Surrender to Oblivion” and fitting closer “When Entropy Decreases”. The production is also befitting the overall atmosphere with a clinical, robotic tone.

While most inudustrial black metal acts have the end of the world coming by virtue of a sudden violent catacklsm of robotic destruction, V:28 to their credit has the planet dying a slow, painful, suffocating death, and VioLution is the sound track.

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