Review: Vanessa Funke – Void (Full album, 2024) | Progressive, rock/metal

We are proud to present to you today the last album in a long list of works well done by the prolific German mostly-solo multi-instrumentalist, Vanessa Funke.

Since its inception, her solo project quickly started to shape into a melancholic effective mix of styles where you could see her development crystal clear, even in collabs or splits, where melodeath and black metal hold their place bent by progressive arrangements. Void keeps her steps in this path, but adds new and fresh touches.

Whether you are already familiar with Vanessa‘s project and career or not, the first to come to mind with a listen is the detail and craftsmanship. Like a good narrator and writer, Vanessa knows how to wire a composition to perfectly transmit what each little story in every song is telling, to a point; where every second of sound feels completely in place.

In an 8-tracks body of work, Void showcases her strong points; a piano-ridden ode to sorrow, the entanglement of riffing with acoustic passages and both a dreamy clear voice and piercing guttural parts, this album probably gets even further in the gothic artistry, reminding of those pioneering forces of goth metal as The Gathering, if they joined forces with Mikael Åkerfeldt in their old days. There’s also a hint of neofolk instrumentals thrown to the oven here that actually she knew how to make it blend and work in excellent harmony as one could expect from veterans like Empyrium themselves. Some extra cool surprises like a Flügelhorn in the fourth song make their appearance which I feel like a huge detail to also highlight.

All and all, Void is a fantastic, mature, profoundly emotional album, a pensive exploration of the mind, loneliness, misery and gloom as dragging as quicksand but as heavy as an anvil carried in the shoulders as we carry the pain of existence itself most of our life.

We from ABMN couldn’t recommend this listen enough if you’re moody for grabbing your best tissues and doing a healthy catharsis exercise letting emotions flow out by Vanessa‘s hand.

⚔️ VANESSA FUNKE ⚔️
BC: https://vanessafunke.bandcamp.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/vanessafunke97/