Exxodium

Fully Automatic

Thanks to a friend in the UK (If you’re reading this, you know who you are, and I love you to death), I managed to get a copy of VNV Nation’s Automatic a few hours early (or maybe days, since it seems a lot of the digital distributors in the US aren’t selling it until October 25th). I’ve been listening to it non-stop for the last day, and here are my thoughts.

(If you buy it via AmazonMP3, know that you’re getting ~200kbps VBR MP3s. For me, this is somewhat less than optimal, but I can deal with it, since I’ll be buying this album again when it comes out in CD form.)

Compared to some of VNV’s previous releases (Especially Matter + Form), Automatic may come off as a softer VNV. Like, closer to Seabound-level. Automatic only possesses one hard-hitting track, and the rest are relatively mellow (at least compared to albums like Empires and Futureperfect).

Don’t get me wrong, Automatic is a very energetic album. But it feels more refined, and nowhere near as harsh as songs like Chrome (Though Control is to Automatic what Chrome was to Matter + Form). 

As a very nice treat, VNV shows their ambient music chops with Goodbye 20th Century, which is much like As it Fades in that it’s a calming, ambient track that feels like an intermission between the two halves of the album. Personally, I love it when VNV throws in an ambient track, since they seem to kick ass at it.

And then we have Nova. Holy crap, this song is just…amazing. Harris’ vocals just shine (no pun intended) on this one, and the rhythm backs his vocals amazingly. It’s a really powerful track. One that I will shamelessly admit I have listened to over and over again. This would be the song that if you heard it live at a concert, the lighters would go up in the air.

Essentially, Automatic is a further refining of the style employed on Of Faith, Power, and Glory. If you disliked that album, there’s a decent chance you won’t like Automatic. Nonetheless, Automatic is an amazing album, and in my book, it can hold a candle to Empires.

If you’re an avid VNV Nation fan, and you loved Of Faith, Power, and Glory, I would highly recommend picking up Automatic. It is amazing. Though if you like VNV only for tracks like Chrome, you might not want to, opting just to pick up Control.

But seriously, at least give the album a listen. It’s worth it. Trust me.