Vanna

The first thing that stands out when listening to Curses is the vocals: powerful and upfront screaming with a sparse amount of cleanly sung back-ups, which is a welcome change from the sea of "clean singing with a bit of screaming” bands that are so popular these days. Musically, Vanna are quite intense, making frequent use of those shrill, Converge-like notes throughout their songs. One of the cooler moments is the breakdown in "Surgical Tools,” which juxtaposes extended pauses with break-neck soloing; this is also the first song that features the clean back-up vocals, which don’t feel forced at all and work quite effectively. In addition to the punishing sound, Vanna make use of melody in much the same way that bands like Shai Hulud did before them, which causes the songs to sound more passionate and relevant than many of those by the band’s contemporaries.