VISAVIS: The Art Of Collapse (HEAVY METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

After “Great!”, which made a decisive shift towards a more modern, denser sound, Visavis doesn't slow down: it presses on the gas pedal and goes straight ahead. “The Art of Collapse”, the latest chapter in the transformation begun with “War Machine”, is a short but hard-hitting EP that feels like a jolt. There's no question here of tempering the tension: every track strikes and leaves its mark.

The sound is thicker, heavier, sinking into textures akin to sludge or industrial metal, while retaining an immediate rock dynamic. Guitars scrape, machines crackle, voices clash. Right from the opening with ‘We Don't Care’, the stance is clear: refusal of convention, refusal of compromise, refusal of silence. Visavis' manifesto is raw, rough but never muddled. Behind the frontal aggression, every arrangement is thought out, every break carefully sculpted.

'The Story Ends' is more contrasting, revealing a more nuanced side of the band. The balance between tension and restraint is maintained on a knife-edge, revealing a new mastery of song architecture. This play on dynamics, already sketched out on “Great!”, reaches full maturity here. Special mention must also go to the title track, ‘The Art of Collapse’, which condenses all the darkness of this opus into less than four minutes, in a sticky, electrifying atmosphere where the voices cross and take turns without ever neutralizing each other.

The strength of this EP lies in its conciseness. No track too long, no idea too diluted: Visavis concentrates its charge in six tracks that function both autonomously and as a whole. The band's work is polished and precise, with a deliberately rough but solid production that captures the almost live urgency of these compositions. No artifice, no overproduction: just the essentials, designed to make an impact in the studio as well as on stage.

With “The Art of Collapse”, Visavis no longer seeks to seduce: it imposes. Here, the band asserts its new identity, more rooted in metal, darker, more radical too. If they still retain traces of their punk and rock roots, it's only to twist them in their own way. The short length of this album does not prevent it from being musically dense and, above all, coherent, which says a lot about the direction it takes. The listener is left a little stunned, a little stimulated, and with the desire to hear more. There's no doubt about it: Visavis is in the midst of reinvention. And “The Art of Collapse” is living, raging, relentless proof. - Official website

VISAVIS

THE ART OF COLLAPSE

M-O-MUSIC

HEAVY METAL