VOKONIS is a Swedish Metal band that covers a lot of ground, mostly in the Doom/Progressive Metal genres. Formed in 2015, they have been incredibly busy, releasing four full-length albums in five years. Their latest offering, "Odyssey," is a six-song epic that takes you on a sonic journey. "Odyssey" will release on May 7, 2021 through The Sign Records.

The record starts of with "Rebellion," a three-minute burner with grittier vocals and guitar tones right off the bat. The cleaner vocals come in later and accentuate the grit. The riff is heavy and full of aggression, just the way it should be. The song just blazes along until the inevitable ending where it fades into the distance. This is a fun song and a good lead off.

Next is the title track, "Odyssey". At almost nine minutes, it is ambitious and has a lot of twists and turns along the way. The tone is lighter, though still pretty doom filled. The dark, sludgy mid-section is full of a good mixture of tones and textures. The song trudges along, in no hurry to race to the finish. There is a bit of "meandering" through a landscape of sounds. The keyboards add a layer to the overall feel of the song, making it feel bigger, fuller.

"Blackened Wings" is a fast-paced, darker song with a melody that gallops along at a nice consistent tempo. The guitar work is interesting with some of the fills in the verses. The chorus has a cool shift to a new rhythm that is reminiscent of some big 80s metal acts. This is followed by "Azure," another darker, gloomy song that chugs along and just promises a little menace and malice. Both are cool songs.

The next piece is a almost a mid-tempo hard rock song at the start, though it does take a turn to a more doom laced piece fairly early. At almost eight minutes, "Hollow Waters" is actually the third longest song of the six. With harmonized vocals being a little more prevalent at times, this is the song that shows more of the band's prowess as a "power trio". There are some fairly obvious similarities to RUSH with this one, mostly because of the underlying keyboard in the song, though the two bands sound very little alike in their composition.

The final track on this record is the 12-plus minute "Through The Depths". Starting with a really nice guitar riff, this is an epic journey through wild landscape of music. The vocalists play off each other well, accentuating their differences, while highlighting how well they work together. With a lot of instrumental areas, the song showcases the talents of the three musicians while also demonstrating their song writing abilities.

VOKONIS, having put out four albums in five years would almost be called prolific in this day and age when many bands have two to three years between records. There is a lot to like about this record if you are a fan of Doom Metal. Their dark, rich tones are awesome. The record is well-produced. This is one of those bands that new fans will like because they can go back and catch up on their discography, and old fans can then talk about how they have been there since the early days. I for one, am a new fan that will be checking out their earlier works.