UMUR "Villainy I" is the debut full-length studio album by Dutch extreme metal act Villainy. The album was released through Inverted Inhumation Records in December 2013. Villainy was formed in 2010 and released a couple of demos before releasing this debut album.

The music on "Villainy I" is at it´s core raw and old school thrash metal, but there is the occasional blackened edge to it and also both traditional heavy/speed metal/doom metal influences and crust/punk elements. So there is a bit of everything in there, but while Villainy take elements from all those musical styles and put them in their music, "Villainy I" still comes off as a consistent release, where you are never in doubt that it´s the same artist playing. In fact the diversity of the material is a major contributing factor to the fact that "Villainy I" is an entertaining release all the way through the 40:19 minutes it lasts.

It isn´t necessarily what you´ll think after listening to the two opening tracks "Through Whispering Eyes" and "Maker", because those are pretty short, raw, and to the point aggressive thrash metal tracks, but already on the considerably longer (7:07 minutes long) "And Now She is Perfect...", Villainy start showing variation as it´s a brick heavy tracks with a slow doomy pace. Then we´re treated to "Charlatan", which is a mostly instrumental track featuring quite a few traditional heavy metal influences (an some eerie organ), and the diversity of the material just continues like that throughout the album.

So the songwriting is inspired and relatively adventurous within the core thrash metal sound, but the music is also delivered with great conviction and a burning passion. Villainy are an organic sounding trio with a strong rhythm section and a lead vocalist/guitarist in Reinier Vrancken, who is positively on fire, churning out one badass riff after another and delivering a caustic snarling vocal performance in the process. His guitar solos are worth a mention too as they are very well played. There aren´t that many of them though, but when they appear they add a lot to the music.

The album features a raw and organic sound production, which suits the music perfectly. It´s not a murky and dark sound though and you are fully able to hear every instrument clearly. So all in all "Villainy I" is a great debut album by Villainy. Diverse songwriting, skillful playing, and caustic aggression. How can you go wrong with that? A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.

UMUR "Villainy II: Dim" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Dutch extreme metal act Villainy. The album was released through Listenable Records in January 2016. Villainy was formed in 2010 and released their debut full-length studio album "Villainy I" in 2013. "Villainy II: Dim" features 11 tracks and a full playing time of 60:41 minutes. All tracks are new original compositions except "The View from My Ivory Tower", which also appeared on "The View from My Ivory Tower" single from 2014. It is however not the same version of the track, which is featured on this album. The version of the track on "Villainy II: Dim" is about twice as long as the original single version, which means it clocks in at 12:26 minutes, making it the longest composition on the album (it´s only available on the CD version of the album).

Stylistically "Villainy I (2013)" was quite a diverse release with elements from both black, thrash, traditional/speed metal, and doom metal featured in the music. That tendency is continued on "Villainy II: Dim", which is an even more varied and adventurous release than it´s predecessor. This time around a tag like progressive extreme metal isn´t all wrong either. Villainy have pretty much forged a sound of their own albeit predominantly with the use of traditional heavy/thrash/speed/doom metal elements. Celtic Frost comes to mind, although that´s mostly because of the eclectic nature of the band´s influences, rather than Villainy sounding like the legendary Swiss band (Voivod is another valid reference). Like the case was on the debut album, Villainy successfully combine their influences into a coherent style, and "Villainy II: Dim" is not an album that´s all over the place, despite what the above description might sound like.

So we´ve established that the music is pretty eclectic and that it´s one of the strengths on "Villainy II: Dim", but it´s not the only asset on the album, which also features strong musicianship, and a powerful, clear, and detailed sound production, which suits the music perfectly. Villainy is a power trio type act featuring Jeroen Pleunis on bass, Reinier Vrancken on vocals and guitars, and Bram Keijers on drums, but they´re able to create quite a lot of sound with that constellation. It´s raw and brutal, atmospheric, blackened and doomy, and melodic and melancholic, at various points throughout the album.

The 11 track, 60:41 minutes long album (10 track, 48:15 minutes long without the CD bonus track) features quite a few instrumentals and instrumental sections in other tracks (the album is a concept album in three chapters, where the instrumentals sometimes work as breathers or bridges between tracks), and the vocals are generally sparse. When they do occur they make quite an impact though. Vrancken is an aggressive snarling vocalist with a mean caustic delivery and to my ears his performance here deserves a special mention. The instrumental part of the music is also very interesting though, and paired with the rather unconventional song structures (I´ve read others call them messy and badly constructed, but I find them refreshing and playful), "Villainy II: Dim" is quite the intriguing sophomore album by Villainy. A 4 star (80%) rating is deserved.