virgin orchestra “on your knees/give in”

Virgin orchestra, an exceptional experimental post-punk band based in Reykjavík, is gearing up to release their debut album. With a double single release, “on your knees” and “give in,” the three musicians of diverse musical background give listeners a sneak peak of the unusual phenomena they’re about to bring to the world.

Virgin orchestra describes “on your knees” as an “anthem of tragedy.” The track opens with a fluctuating melancholy. Immediately, the bleakness of a piercing guitar takes listeners to where the post-war captives were executed. The drastically tragic single evokes a sense of urgency, leveling between humanism and grim. Uncompromising narrative meets a picturesque post-punk glitch, together in an avant-garde soundscape. “On your knees” is confrontational but deeply sensitive.

The lead vocals in the track reminds listeners of the unorthodox singing voice of PJ Harvey, whose vocal performance alone is a poetry of extreme and atmospheric expression. There are a lot of grounds being challenged here in “on your knees.” Artistic expression in the post-avant garde world seeks more from non-linear and immersive storytelling, and that’s where their sounds seemed to be headed.

If “on your knees” is where blood drops became spots of black, “give in” is the somber dance between a blurred-edged mellowness and drastic horror. The sonic palette evokes a confessional contrast as the scale tips from one end to another. On on end, a fantastic drop of substance dissolve in the blood, blurring the line between poetry and sound, reality and surreality.

The hypnotic, psychedelic soundscape feels eternal, but all of a sudden, the color changed, so violently. Like the surroundings have frozen into darkness and deserted abyss in high resolution, the true horror of being “awake” has never been so close. Virgin orchestra tackles substance abuse with such palpable sonic depiction that is truly provocative.