Synth EP Review: “Victims Of Light” by Violentene

by Karl Magi

Violentene’s “Victims Of Light" is a journey through refracted light and voids of shadow, anchored by Mvrijo's vocal performance and given texture and shape by Roland M’s approach to the sound. The EP moves across shattered emotional terrain and variegated feelings as it evolves. 

“Beginnings” comes into being as threatening weight swells with shadowy import and gigantic, drifting sounds mingle nobility with danger and a hint of melancholy. Towering drums burst and fade while the dramatic orchestral synth vibrates with swelling serenity and pain. The slow rhythmic pulse of the drums adds to the drama, setting the stage for the emotional experience coming next. A sense of anticipatory emotion touches the music before it fades.

Portentous notes hover with a feeling of impending danger as a thumping drum launches an angular melody to start “Savage City.” The melody has a technological sharpness as it moves above the exploding drums and giant bass, while Mvrijo’s voice is caressing and shadowed, mixing seduction with fear. Illuminating notes reverberate with Mvrijo’s full and expressive vocals, haunting and full of feeling.

The drum beat rushes with slicing energy before the threatening underpinnings rumble. Mvrijo captures me as she conveys the feelings of disconnection and discomfort in the lyrics. The vocals whisper and slide while rounded chords add depth. The rhythm is relentless and Mvrijo has a ghostly tinge to her voice as computerized notes descend with digital precision. The vocals skim through the music with a misty sensation above the irresistibly throbbing drums before the song comes to an end.

As floating silence sinks deeper “in the echoes of your mind,” our narrator says that at night “you pray that you will keep up the fight,” because beneath your skin you can no longer breathe or feel.

In the savage city, the narrator is “at a standstill, holding on to nothing.” From lovers to strangers, through all the peaks and troughs, “you had it all but you can’t trust no more.”

Our storyteller concludes that you “might still get there as air is running low,” with no more hiding, longing for something real.

“Other Side of Eternity” opens with haunting bells vibrating into open space beneath a galactically levitating melody. The drums and bass interlock into a charging foundation as the synth drifts with cosmic elegance, wheeling like the stars.

As Mvrijo’s whisper-soft vocals slip with dreaming smoothness, the bass architecture supports warming notes that swell with embracing tenderness. The strongly throbbing low end moves with Roland M’s guitar as it hovers like a nocturnal cloud drifting across the moon. The dreamy sensation Roland M creates within the music compels me as the solidly propulsive undergirding presses forward.

String-like notes intertwine with caressing touches as the music flows. Mvrijo’s sweetly gossamer voice floats free, like a night breeze, as bells convey starry delicacy. The chorus glides past, permeated by loving expression, while the steadily shaping bass weight intermingles with the low end. The song ends with the vocals sailing like silk before dropping away, the ethereal melody falling quiet.

The narrator will “scream so loud, just to feel the void,” as her soul is fed by chaos. Lost in a haze, she can’t deny anything, so she’ll “embrace the cold that’s seeping through my mind.” She’s set free by the cold as she continues to pretend, “down on my knees, begging for mercy.” She goes on to say that she’ll see the song’s subject on the “other side of eternity.”

“Where do you hide when you close your eyes?” our storyteller asks the song’s subject as they raise up walls. She speaks of everything they left behind now seeming out of sight “as we said our goodbyes.” She’s finished with pretending and says that she’ll “roll asunder.” There are no hiding places left and it’s hard to fight when “blindness leaves the light.”

Rapidly charging drums and a distantly levitating sound trembling with waiting pain commence “Victims of Light”. Electric bass surges forward as the drums erupt, while delicate textures float and Mvrijo’s bittersweet voice carries a haunting melody steeped in shadow.

Her breathy delivery trails through the music with misty feelings, mingling pain and defiance. I enjoy Mvrijo’s range and emotional power as she captures the shattered feelings within the lyrics. Pattering drums add shape while Roland M’s synth contributes soft effulgence.

The low end drives on as the contrasting vocals drift like cobwebs on a midnight breeze. The chorus climbs with melancholy while the foundation charges forward. Moonlit notes pour through the music as Mvrijo pierces me with her emotive delivery and the song ends with gruff bass and softened, fading vocals.

As “something crawls inside me,” Our storyteller feels as though that thing is breathing down her throat. She adds, “The hole in my heart isn’t as deep as an arrow piercing through my flesh.” She says they have been there before, “longing for the night to fall,” growing in the dark and wonders if the shadows will catch her fall as “we’re victims of the light.”

the narrator asks, “Did you have to betray me, acting like you didn’t care?” because it stripped her of sanity and “turned your bed into my grave.” She questions how the other person sleeps at night “with the fire in your eyes,” still victims of the light. She says that “heavy burdens disappear where shadowed dreams, consumed by fear, collide,” when she is about to lose everything again “from everything you ever took from me.”

To conclude, Our storyteller declares that she is “losing sight and born again, thicker skin breaking these chains.”

“Overcome” starts with wandering, bending notes and a razor-edged bass sweep. The computerized lead synth carries a melody which skips with easygoing lightness above a gliding drum beat. Mvrijo’s voice is like silk and breezy air, capturing feelings of aspiration and yearning. The chorus leaps with encouragement and a hint of remembrance while the athletic beat moves with a technological-sounding synth.

Drums and bass slide away as serene waves float and twisting sounds roam. The slicing bass continues to pulse with the solid drums while Mvrijo catches me with her hushed feeling and deep expression. Computerized notes frolic with uplifting sensations as the energizing beat rockets on. The chorus cascades, and the tonal pattern that emerges is tinged with darkness as it flows while the drum beat continues forcefully rushing.

Bass rumbles as the drums fall away and the song drifts for a moment before the lively chorus flies out again before the song ends.

While her thoughts keep running, “feeling lost, can’t overcome, stepping closer to the edge,” but now they don’t have to be afraid. 

Perhaps the narrator doesn’t want to be how she is as she pleads, “don’t shoot me down for my mistakes,” and asks if she’s falling into place, leaving “yet another scar I should embrace.”

 “Looking at what we’ve become, fears through ups and downs,” she wonders if she’ll ever find peace. She concludes, “no one should take their hopes away, don’t take our hopes away.”