Qoya – Karma
Qoya – Karma
Self -Released
Release Date: 04/10/24
Running Time: 36:35
Review by Dark Juan
Score: 8/10
Dark Juan is committed to bringing you the good stuff. Many, many hours of my life are dedicated to trawling the underground around the world to see where the real talent lies, and I am not concerned by genre, particularly, as music is more than just a single style. Yes, I am a Metal fan and have been for forty years or so, but that is not to say that there ain’t some other fucking amazing music out there, although it does seem that, in the Ever-Metal.com family (for that is what we are, and I thumb my nose at anyone who dares to say otherwise. Normally I would immediately threaten violence, but I am still feeling a touch dodgy and therefore just verbally defying you is all I can currently offer) I tend towards the more Gothic, the Shoegaze, most definitely the Industrial, the Alternative and the Electronic. We have Rory for all the -Core stuff and Rick for the Extreme and everyone has their own little niches that they have settled themselves into.
At the core of everything we do, though, we are just FANS. We all do this for the love of the music, and the voyages of discovery we are all on just feeds our passion for the music. It is indeed fair to say that we rarely get any dud releases anymore, and the plethora of high scores I have dished out this year is testament to that fact. One does wonder when this bubble is going to burst and Metal, and associated scenes are going to do what they did in the 2005-2009 era and disappear back up their own arses in a welter of downtuned chugging and roaring.
I hope it doesn’t happen. I hope the underground is resilient enough to withstand it if it does.
With that in mind, I have dragged the Platter of Splatter™ out of its lair and reverently placed a record upon it. This time we return to France (Dark Juan appears to be the resident expert at EM Towers on the French underground Metal/ Goth/ Industrial scenes what with his love of Baron Crane, P.H.O.B.O.S, Escotrilihum, Fange and the like), more specifically Grenoble, and I will pass critical judgement (oui, mes amis français, vous avez un rosbif qui vous juge. Je m’excuserais mais c’est un accident de naissance! J’ai vécu et travaillé en Bretagne pendant quelques années et j’ai un amour profond et constant pour votre pays. Mais pas la bureaucratie gouvernementale!) upon them, and their melancholy music.
Allons y!
To describe Qoya’s music as miserable is analogous to saying that Dark Juan is the epitome of a Northern Englishman. It is slow, morose and heartbreaking. It relies entirely on light and shade and languid movements rather than massive power, and the vocals of Quentin Chazel tear at the heartstrings as he employs an engaging melding of the styles of aunty Bob Smith and clean Nick Holmes – all slow burn emotion and sorrow. He goes almost New Wave in parts too. Generally, when he is singing to the sprightlier pieces of music. Sprightly being a relative term here, do not expect warp speed because you are not going to get it.
Mogadon-fuelled melancholy is the order of the day here. The album opens with ‘Ascend’, an instrumental piece that takes any enthusiasm and happiness you had and crushes it underfoot and rams it into a box and shoves it away in the dark before the next song, ‘Ghost’ comes to seize you in its sorrowful grip. Although ‘Ascend’ has one of the truly loveliest melodies I have ever heard on it. Now, the band themselves describe their music as a kind of Shoegaze with added elements of Post-Rock (read “fucking Goff as fuck, mate”) and Doom Metal. Dark Juan is willing to contend that the music is heavier than your standard Shoegaze like, say, Chapterhouse or Slowdive, but it angles more towards the Gothic than towards Doom Metal. This is not really a criticism, more an observation – Dark Juan is an enthusiastic (some may say rabid) fan of anything that is Gothic, and Qoya’s music has set my imagination ablaze. Even if ‘Mirrors’ sounds a bit Morrissey-esque on the vocals…
It tells me stories of a person who has suffered considerable and traumatic loss, seated by themselves in an armchair, with brandy in a balloon left untasted next to them as they stare out of the window at the bustling city below them in the Faubourg St. Germain, merely observing but not wanting to associate themselves with any of the masses. Waves of sorrow and self-pity and absolute rage consume them at various moments, yet they do not move from their seat and stare unseeing out of the window when states of sonder occasionally hammer home and they are consumed with thoughts, wondering if the people below them have suffered such loss and hopelessness…
Yes, Qoya have activated the imagination of your good correspondent, and this is always a good thing, because I count it as a plus if the music I am listening to can get the grey matter moving.
All in all, this is a damned fine album. There will be purists who feel that it is not heavy enough to satisfy, but Dark Juan is enjoying this album because it has depth, and light and shade, and is perfectly heavy enough to please most listeners. If anything, Qoya remind me of a slightly less heavy Soldat Hans, their ‘Schöner Verbirst Pt. 1’ being quite similar to the slower passages of Qoya’s music. If you are the kind of person who enjoys openly weeping at music, or thinks that bats are cute, then I submit respectfully that Qoya might just be your new favourite band. Their mix of gentleness, sorrow and brawn hits all the right marks for people who prefer the power of emotion over pure rage and insane levels of distortion.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Le système breveté d’évaluation des éclaboussures de sang Dark Juan pour mes amis francophones du monde entier… Je pourrais vous parler toute la journée de combien j’aime la France mais vous vous ennuieriez tous vraiment et je me ferais prendre parce que mon français est malheureusement je manque depuis mon retour au Royaume-Uni) awards Qoya 8/10 for an album that is affecting, deep and the musical epitome of sadness. Marks were removed because I feel that some people are going to discount Qoya because of their perceived lack of heaviness (and Ever-Metal is after all a Metal website) and because the band operate in a strange musical hinterland that only Goffs and the more intrepid listener will know about. Saying that, if you dig Swans, the Sisters of Mercy and the like you’re going to dig Qoya!
TRACKLISTING:
01. Ascend
02. Ghost
03. Mantra
04. Karma
05. Anima
06. Timeless
07. Sheol
08. Mirrors
09. Temple
10. Altar
LINE-UP
Quentin Chazel – Vocals, guitar
Antoine Roux – Guitar
Amar Ruiz – Drums, synthesizers
LINKS
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
