The huge box ofUnfold The God ManPsychonaut’s debut album on Pelagic, repressed 3 times during the pandemic and selling 3,000 copies to date, proved the band to be a force to be reckoned with.
These three gentlemen from Mechelen (Belgium) are back with a fierce and highly anticipated concept album proclaiming the formation of a new world through the acceptance of a new human identity. “We have always been interested in religion, spirituality and philosophy,” explains singer/guitarist Stefan De Graef. “We meditated together, had long discussions about the nature of life, and we share a common vision.”
For now, with the release of their second album Violate Consensus Reality, the Belgian trio offers you a visceral journey into our collective consciousness. A journey marked by explosive riffs, captivating voices and complex but catchy compositions. An impressive album that cements Psychonaut as a contender for the throne of the European progressive/post-metal community.
“We distance ourselves from a system based on the idea that humanity is fundamentally bad and needs to protect itself from itself thanks to a form of hierarchy”, continues De Graef about this new Psychonaut album. . “By no longer subscribing to the principle that we are all separate beings in a separate, dead and useless world, we accept the vision of a new civilization rooted in the idea that we are part of a living and sacred universe.” Comparing our current state of separation to “an island in oceans, cultivated, designed to bear unpredictable anger”, the group accompanies its denunciation with punishing riffs and strongly syncopated rhythms, gripping and guiding on a turbulent journey.
Violate Consensus Reality summons the senses as rarely for a concept album. It’s raw and brutal, unlike the lofty concept albums of yesteryear, with their endlessly repeated patterns and unnecessarily complex song structures. The album prefers to follow a long tradition of musical activism, while deconstructing it, by means of its strong and reprimanding tone, and giving it a thoughtful basis, rooted in philosophy and spirituality.
Considering their lofty goal of envisioning a brighter world, Psychonaut chose a seemingly peculiar album title, but one that perfectly captures the nature of the record. It’s all in the word “violate”, which is always a negative word, which can be related to a violation of rights, or to a person being violated, etc. It’s never positive and, certainly in light of recent events – the #metoo movement, the Covid pandemic, the overturning of the Roe v. Wade case by the US Supreme Court – it’s a picture particularly powerful. On the contrary, the word “consensus” is generally considered a positive notion, but on Violate Consensus Reality, it is the principle against which the group takes issue.
This subversiveness is characteristic of the state of mind necessary to apprehend the music of Psychonaut. Violate Concensus is not for the faint-hearted, both in concept and music, as of all Psychonaut’s records to date, it’s the one with the most intricate riffing and playing. technical. Violate Consensus Reality is a wild ride, from the rhythmic, neck-breaking riffs of “A Pacifist’s Guide To Violence” to the rippling neo-classical piano passages of “Hope”, until the glorious finale of “Towards the Edge”.
The mantric title track opens with the angelic voice of Stefanie Mannaerts (Brutus) and slowly builds to burst into an explosive sermon delivered by Colin H. van Eeckhout (Amenra, CHVE, Absent in Body), the appearance of these two talented musicians affirms the stature of Psychonaut in the Belgian metal scene, and beyond.
“No man is an entire island unto himself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the continent,” Reverend John Donne so aptly wrote in his Devotions. A rare moment of extroversion in a work otherwise marked by introspection, and a most powerful psychological analysis that still inspires today. Echoing through the ages, Donne’s most direct and honest acknowledgment of human interdependence still resonates in the bowels of Violate Consensus Reality, creating a powerful discourse on the intersection between the individual and the collective.
Psychonaut once again delivers a transformative experience, serving renewal through riffs, and upliftment through thoughtful music with a heartfelt message.
Psychonaut has performed on big Belgian festivals like Alcatraz, Rock Herk or Boomtown and other smaller ones like Soulcrucher, Roadburn Redux or A Colossal Weekend. The group has opened for big names like Amenra and Brutus, and has just wrapped up a European tour with label mates The Ocean and PG.Lost. A bright future awaits them, and the 800 seats for their album release concert at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels are going fast. We will have warned you!