Van Canto is a six piece melodic metal band that rely solely on their vocal cords. They do it all- guitars, keys, bass, bagpipes (in the case of the Grave Digger cover 'Rebellion'), even steamy guitar solos: all are done with their voices. However, they do rely on drummer Bastian Emig to bring an edgy percussive element to the band that could never be replicated by any amount of vocal percussion skill. Tribe of Force is Van Canto's third album recorded and is under the guidance of Charlie Bauerfeind. It follows up self-produced 'A Storm to Come' (2006) and a more polished 'Hero' (2008- which also was recorded under Bauerfeind in Blind Guardian's studios). In their first two albums Van Canto blended a nice mix of original tracks with covers; Tribe of Force is no different with the most notable songs being covers of Master of Puppets (Metallica) & Rebellion (Grave Digger), and originals Lost Forever & Tribe of Force.
The album kicks off with an intense original entitled Lost Forever. This song immediately gives you a good flavor of all the band has to offer. It opens with their voices layered in harmonies that produce a fugue-like effect that give way to the lead vox of Dennis Schunke and Inga Scharf soaring over a heavy foundation of vocal bass. Bass singer Ingo Sterzinger alters his progression into a series of doom-dooms creating the effect of a bass guitar plugging along. The backup singers, Stefan Schmidt and Ross Thompson then drop into a bunch of fast paced 'dubbly dum' type lyrics and emulate dueling guitars launching power chords and riffs at one another. Schunke and Scharf sing vocal melodies atop the skilled drum onslaught led by Bastian and together the sextet produces a very full sound that almost causes you to forget they aren't using melodic instruments. They are even able to replicate guitar solos with the help of a little distortion.
The challenge that every 'vocal band' faces is the art of effectively reproducing the sounds of instruments without sacrificing the integrity song. i.e. can they scrap instruments and still be taken seriously? Inevitably the group makes liberal use of words like “doo, bum, dee, baw, etc” to create sounds of instruments without actually singing words. The Swingle Singers are one such band that has paved the way for Van Canto in this realm as they cover a lot of classical instrumental music acapella-ly. While these two bands stylistically sound nothing alike (one is classical the other is metal)- there are some similarities in the way Van Canto vocally handles instrumental sections (the middle of My Voice, the intro to Rebellion, and the 'instrumental' section in the center of Master of Puppets are all good examples). At first listen, these 'sound-words' can be difficult to take seriously if you haven't encountered this style of music before. However, given their endeavor of 'singing metal' this is about the only way to approach it and they do a pretty good job. Some of the 'guitar' solos come off a little cheesy and occasionally the backups will use a series of 'sound-words' that will strike me as odd and elicit a chuckle. However, for the most part I found myself eagerly listening to the band.
Music that is primarily acapella is incredibly challenging to pull off well. The harmonies have to blend, the voices have to be rhythmically in sync, and the sound needs to be credible. I think Van Canto excels in all of these categories. They have some great harmonies in their tracks (as heard in their title track 'Tribe of Force'), there are some pretty technical rhythmic sections ('Master of Puppets', 'Lost Forever', & 'My Voice'), and there wasn't a single track that I could single out as being 'hokey' (aside from just a few hokey moments). I applaud Van Canto in their creative approach to metal and creating this truly unique work of art.
Reviewed by Ben Black
