VUKOVI — NULA — Album Review
Rock | Metal | Pop
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
Two whole years this album has been in the making. And besides even that, this brand new album from the Glaswegian duo known as VUKOVI has been a highly anticipated one of mine.
I had discovered VUKOVI just a short while before the release of their debut album, at the time in which the band were still a four-piece. It didn’t take me long at all to enjoy their debut, self-titled LP either. I really loved their heavy yet danceable musical style, which felt very reminiscent of Biffy Clyro (and no, I’m not just saying that because they are a Scottish rock group either).
After that, I felt that VUKOVI’s debut was going to be a hard one to top. Nevertheless, even though the number of full-time members were condensed down by half since the release of their self-titled piece, their sophomore album went above and beyond to pull out all the stops.
Titled Fall Better, this second album was released in the early part of 2020 (the end of the very first month of it, to be specific). And while that album definitely gave fans a tonne to enjoy, it seemed that VUKOVI wanted to strike while the iron was hot, by releasing another track later on in the same year. This song was names “SLO”, and would ultimately become the first teaser track for the duo’s third instalment.
Following this, fans received a steady trickle of tracks in 2021, with tunes such as “KILL IT” and “HURT”. I even got to see VUKOVI perform live later on that same year, at the brighton venue Patterns. Unsurprisingly, all of thee above teasers were played, heightening my excitement towards the final album even further.
Throughout the musical year of 2022 thus far, VUKOVI blessed us with even more teaser tracks, adding another four to the total seven overall. And now we finally arrive at the full album itself.
It was clear from all of the teasers that a tonne of passion went into this project (perhaps even more so than past projects). This results in an album that is absolutely abundant in energetic bangers, to the point where I was really left feeling spoilt for choice.
All the VUKOVI goodness did not stop at the teaser tracks whatsoever. Tracks like “TAINTED” and “SHADOW” definitely stand as some of VUKOVI’s finest works in their entire discography. That certainly isn’t to say that the teaser tracks don’t do their bit as well, however, as they seem thoughtfully placed on the grand scheme of the album itself.
I feel that VUKOVI were almost going for a split vibe when it came to the structure of their album, with six tracks for each half, split by the interlude titled “ATTENTION”. This certainly added an interesting ad refreshing flavour to the album, and further helped it stand out from the previous two projects (which is a hard feat to achieve in my mind).
My only miniscule gripe with the album is that seen as the quality of the band’s production has seemingly changed quite a bit between the release of “SLO” and the release of the album, a couple of remasters for some of the older tracks would not have gone amiss.
And while the competition is certainly sturdy, when it comes to previous VUKOVI albums, NULA could well possibly be their most masterfully-made albums to date, in which the band has ramped up their empowering sound and message up to 11!
Favourite Tracks: TAINTED | LASSO | QUENCH | SHADOW | HURT
LAB Records
