Vexillary – Full Frontal Lunacy (album) – Review

Label: con:trace

Released: 31/10/2021

What do you get when you mix a long winter with a pandemic of a lifetime

and a bunch of synths lying around? The cabin fever stemming from an endless lockdown and the resulting mental demise? According to Vexillary, the perfect backdrop for a sonic self-portrait documenting one’s brush with madness.

Vexillary’s first proper full-length album after a steady string of EPs is the result of such experiment. Working around the clock often through long caffeine fueled sessions, Vexillary took on a method actor’s approach to lock himself into the manic state needed to arrive at the intense sound suggested by the title of the record.

After the conceptual, SurViolenceEP, Vexillary wanted to create a personal record as a form of therapy to examine the darkest parts of his own psyche. The resulting 8 tracks that shape the record document the demise of a protagonist from flirting with madness and burnout, all the way to the point of total nervous breakdown and mania.

The  record  features  guest  vocalists  WARTERAUM  (on  ‘Scent  of  Torture’)  and  La  Strange (on  ‘The  Descent’)  in  addition  to  Vexillary  taking  on  different  vocal  duties  to inject  each  track  with  a  different  personality  and  represent  various  layers  of Vexillary’s  demented  mind.

But it’s not all doom and gloom as the record ends on a beautiful note in ‘Exit the Void’ to suggest a new beginning, or is it a celebration of a cruel end? You’ll have to listen to the full album to come to your own conclusion as there is way more than meets the mind in the twisted world of FullFrontalLunacy.