ALBUM REVIEW: VOODOO BLOO - JACOBUS
“Using music as a way to process, to heal and to grow as a human, New Zealand’s Voodoo Bloo has created a powerful collection of furious rock music in his debut album, Jacobus.
A nine track studio album that has been born out of dark times for Voodoo Bloo (aka Wellington songwriter and musician Rory McDonald), Jacobus is an album of twists and turns, a narrative rollercoaster driven by emotion and urgency.”
Opening track ‘A Pig On Antibiotics (Exploding Song)’ is exactly what you’d expect with a title like that - an almost screeching cacophony serving as the first few opening seconds, with slow droning first verses gradually building up and leading into an intense eruption of instrumental and vocal explosion. The nearly 7 minute track serves as a daring example of what’s to come.
‘Her Name Was Human’ and ‘Lost Connection’ have been named two of the album’s major highlights ‘that are demonstrative of Voodoo Bloo’s great musicality and instrumentation’ and it’s easy to see why.
‘Her Name Was Human’ almost reminds me a little of good ol’ Australian 90’s/2000’s rock group Killing Heidi, though I can’t quite put into words why. Another longer track, sitting at 6:12, ‘Her Name Was Human’ opens straight away with high-paced guitar and drums and throws us straight into the story telling of ‘her’, and an almost begging to understand ‘what’s in /her/ mind’.
Halfway, we begin to come down with a slower verse of sorts, telling from more of the story-tellers perspective, before jumping into a just slightly higher paced section, serving as a sort of a middle-ground outro to sum up the whole track.
‘Lost Connection’ has a whole other atmosphere to it, opening low and slow, and leading into more of a stable, regular, consistent pace throughout the rest of the 6 minute piece. Throughout the majority of these tracks, the element of echo is regularly used to assist in the album’s encompassing ambience, and I really don’t know what the album would be without that.
A tad slower, even poetic, ‘Homebody’ begins - once again, low and slow. The first typical-lengthed track so far (4:08), brings back the slow droning of the first track with an element of almost spoken word through the verses, before the repetition in the ‘I am nothing’ choruses, before building intensity from the 3 minute mark ahead of the final fading riff.
So far, Voodoo Bloo is hugely reminding me of local Aussie rock bands Peep Tempel and Gold Class, but especially so with tracks ‘Ha Ha Ok Ok’ and ‘MMA’.
‘Ha Ha Ok Ok’ is an absolute BANGA, and being the first single released from the album, it does a perfect job of drawing you into the feverish borderline-angry rock genre that Voodoo Bloo is quickly proving himself in.
‘MMA’ opens with a low bassline, then once again throws you straight back into high paced punk rock. With words on fighting a lynch mob(?), this one is the real rep in comparing to the earlier mentioned Peep Tempel.
The slow somber outro section takes us from what would be a typical song length at 3:29, to once again another longer track at 5:18. I think that in calling this an album (the cut off for an EP being about 7 songs/30 minutes), Mcdonald has used his 8 tracks incredibly effectively with the longer track durations. It’s a shorter album, but it really doesn’t feel like it - in a good way.
‘A Brother, A Son, A War That Never Changes/ A Friend, Jacobus’ stands out as the more emotionally representative track. In talking about the album, it is mentioned that “Jacobus is a tribute album of sorts, a way for Voodoo Bloo’s Rory McDonald to deal with grief and mourning” - and this track certainly conveys that the most prominently. This is also the longest track on the album, coming in at a whopping 10:44. The spoken ‘unscripted’ section and wavering emotional vocals in the last softer, slower third of the song caught me off guard, and really conveys the intimacy that the whole album aims to represent.
‘9th of July, 2019’ continues with the softer acoustic side we heard at the end of ‘A Brother, A Son, A War That Never Changes/ A Friend, Jacobus’, and appears to reminisce on old times and memories with a since-passed loved one.
‘You still owe me 50 bucks, I don’t really care that much. I promise I’ll try to learn all these things you said to me.’
‘Remember sneaking out at night for fun, nothing special, just bored and young, a time so innocent I’ll cherish those days, that smiling face with a warm embrace.’
The track sticks with the soft slow acoustics the whole way through, and seems like more of an acceptance song. In knowing that this album was indeed about grieving, it seems to be detailing the final step in that process, accepting that it is, in fact, ‘time to go to sleep...time for you to leave’, finalising the ‘Goodbye’ we hear at the end of the prior track.
All in all - emotional, intimate, energetic, filthy with aggressive production and personal, passionate songwriting, ‘Jacobus’ is a privilege to hear.
“Jacobus has its moments of intimacy and nuance, providing moments of reflection and memorialising on Voodoo Bloo’s part. An emotional album to record, Jacobus is a tribute album of sorts, a way for Voodoo Bloo’s Rory McDonald to deal with grief and mourning - all demonstrative of Voodoo Bloo’s great musicality and instrumentation.”
