Album review: Voyager "Fearless In Love"

[ UPDATE, 21 Sep 2023: the last 2 paragraphs don't really make much sense now that Voyager have (understandably) postponed their Autumn tour of Europe on account of Danny's urgent medical situation. I'm off to listen to Promise again whilst crossing my fingers extra hard for him. ]*

Voyager's 8th studio album, Fearless In Love, has been out for 2 months now, and I feel like I've got familiar enough with it to give a review a go. I'll try not to bore, neither by gushing uncritically like the newbie Voyager superfan I've become, nor by repeating too much that's been said already in the many other excellent reviews of this album.

To summarise upfront: it's good, great even. It continues in the broad style of Voyager's previous two studio albums (Ghost Mile & Colours In The Sun). Its main selling point, just like its predecessors, is the emphasis on contrasts, mainly between the clean synths & vocals and the distorted guitar sounds (the sine qua non of metal according to many, including the co-author of this paper). There's ample variety overall, from dark moods to optimism, and from short, impactful 3-minute bangers to broader, more epic tracks. Prog metal nerds risk being disappointed with all 11 songs on the album being in 4/4 (with none of them longer than 5 and a half minutes) but should nevertheless be satisfied with the excellent songwriting and orchestration.

 

So, what did I think of it in detail? Let's start with the release schedule and the preceding singles:

I originally pre-ordered this album through Bandcamp around the time of the Eurovision 2023 contest itself and hence I immediately had access to 4 single tracks (Dreamer - Submarine - Promise - Prince Of Fire). I'd already bought these elsewhere and listened to them heavily.

My first thought is that the choice of singles was very astute. Obviously Dreamer was out there in time for Australia Decides ahead of Eurovision 2022. It was a hit with the voting public in Australia and is an obvious inclusion on the album. From what I can tell, Submarine was released well before Voyager's 2023 Eurovision journey began in earnest. It's now my go-to track when I want to prove to someone that truly heavy, frenetic, yet positive and tuneful metal exists (for me, it just pips Devin Townsend's Supercrush or Kingdom to the post). It also has one of my favourite music videos of all time - completely ridiculous and somehow weirdly moving at the same time.

Whatever plans Voyager had for the album release and any subsequent singles, they must have been ditched once Promise was selected as Australia's Eurovision 2023 entry and eventually released in February 2023 as part of that campaign. The positioning of Promise on the album is fascinating, especially knowing that the album was originally conceived without it (which we know because of the existence of early vinyl pressings that omit it). I feel that Promise somehow doesn't belong straight after Submarine: bombast followed by an overdose of epic-ness perhaps. But it's such a unicorn of a song I'm not sure it belongs next to anything else either, so in between Submarine and Twisted is as good as anywhere.

In the week before the 2023 Eurovision contest itself, the band released Prince Of Fire, an excellent choice conveying a clear message, namely: "Yeah, we're doing Eurovision this year, and we are also still a proper metal band. Here's a longer single with 16 bars of djent-y morse code breakdown and a video with GRATUITOUS FIRE in it to prove it. Also we are not a one-trick novelty act, go check out our other stuff." And then, post-Eurovision, 4 days before the full album release, we got Ultraviolet, probably my favourite of the album overall - I listened to this one intensely for those 4 days.

So that meant that the album release gave me 6 further tracks, and while I like them all, I don't think any of them would have made better singles than the 5 that were actually released. The Best Intentions seems like a conscious decision to start a metal album with something bright, in a major key with perky synth sounds. It's a great opener, giving the impression of being mostly chorus but remaining interesting thanks to the orchestration of the 1 sort-of-verse and kinda-bridge-I-guess.

Twisted has turned out to be a fan favourite, and I can see why. Darker-sounding synths kick it off as if it might be an EDM track, but it subsequently rattles along as some vocal harmony joins in with the distorted guitars. The half-time (arguably quarter-time) section adds a little more weight. Immediately afterwards we have Daydream, which rivals Submarine for overall brightness and positivity - another solid composition with a particular favourite moment of mine being the chorus that unexpectedly drops the guitars and drums and provides just synth backing for a few bars.

Gren (Fearless In Love) is the perfect finisher, its inexorable epic chugging finally dying away amid floaty synth sounds.  It's the longest track, at 5min23s, and yet I wonder whether it wouldn't sound just grand extended to twice that duration. Every time it ends, it ends too soon for me - I'm joyful that I got to listen to it, but melancholy because it's over.

All this excellence in songwriting does raise the bar somewhat though, in that any dullness is going to be even more apparent. Two tunes made me worry, on first listen, that Voyager had let their compositional standards slip, because I initially found myself bored of the thematic repetition. In The Lamenting, I was thankfully convinced otherwise by the last minute or so, where the introduction of a new heavy riff with some queasy pitch bends livened the whole composition up. In Listen, boredom was averted halfway through via a fake build-up to an expected climax, which was instead replaced by a beautiful stripped-back section of guitar solo. I *think* this is a dialogue where Simone and Scott trade phrases, given that I can hear two different lines made distinct using stereo panning, but I'd love to know for sure as they intentionally play with very similar tones.

1min14s into Ultraviolet is probably my favourite moment of the whole album. The dreamy synth opening has already given way to brisk 4/4 drumming in the verse, followed by huge, heavy, ringing guitar chords: epic like a high-roofed cathedral or a wide open landscape. And then there's a sort of written-out stumble where the guitars play quicker notes but miss out the 1st beat of the bar, weakening it unexpectedly. This little gargoyle on the musical cathedral is all the more effective for not being repeated: at a similar moment later on, those heavy chords continue to ring out solidly in time with the vocal line. The whole album's full of compositional gambits like this and I am, as I'm sure the youth of today would probably say, very much here for it. This track is topped off by Sean Harmanis (from fellow Perth band Make Them Suffer). His vocal cameo is perfectly judged: dirty death-growls to provide the climax and contrast with Danny's clean vocals and the floaty synths and guitars.

*[ Speaking of dirty vocals, I'll be really fascinated to see how Voyager perform this track when they go on tour next month - I would presume that Alex could do the dirty vocals as he has on other tracks and I would love to hear him do so. Of course this assumes Ultraviolet even makes it on to the setlist - thinking about the previous gig I went to, Dreamer, Submarine and Promise had already made the cut, but we now have Prince Of Fire, Ultraviolet and maybe even something else from the latest album (Gren? Twisted? Daydream?) that I'm sure fans would appreciate... but then which songs should they leave out? It's a good problem to have though, and I'll happily listen to anything they decide to play when gig day comes around.

In any case, Fearless In Love is a great collection of music and I'm sure will feature heavily in Voyager's live gigs. I am weeks away from going to hear them in person and I'm already excited! ]