Vauruvã – Mar Da Deriva review

01. Legado
02. Os Caçadores
03. As Selvas Vermelhas No Planeta Dos Eminentes

Years later, Caio Lemos is the only one who can make black metal feel this earthy.

This is not the first time I’ve covered a project by Brazil’s Caio Lemos, and in each of the reviews I’ve written I tell the story of how Bríi and Kaatayra individually became trailblazing discoveries when I first stumbled upon them, and what seemed like an explosion of experimental metal actually later turned out to be the work of a single man, though using an alias for one of them. Even though I haven’t covered any of his works since 2022, that doesn’t mean that Lemos stopped making music, coming out with at least one album every year with at least one of his projects. Even though I enjoyed them, I didn’t feel as compelled to actually cover them, feeling at risk of repeating things I’ve already said about the way he does music.

That hasn’t fundamentally changed. A lot of what I said about his previous works applies here, and the lines between how each project sounds have been blurred to the point where the fact that it’s a Caio Lemos album matters more than whatever artist name is attached to it. But even if I felt a bit oversaturated as a writer with his stuff, I have never covered anything with the Vauruvã name. And this one does stand out from Bríi and Kaatayra through the fact that it’s a duo instead of a solo project, even if the other part of the duo, Bruno Augusto Ribeiro, is a vocalist, so the instrumental part is handled fully by Lemos once again, so it’s still not something with a “band” feeling. And since I’ve missed when Vestígio released their debut, structurally interesting due to the fact that it had a different vocalist on every track (including Ribeiro), Mar Da Deriva feels like a compromise.

Compared to the previous Vauruvã albums, Mar Da Deriva feels like it has more in common with Vestígio‘s debut, Vestígios, due to only having three long tracks instead of multiple shorter ones. The long form songwriting approach blurs the line even more with the other projects, with the usual warm sounds feeling organic even with some sporadic electronic touches over the black metal. Ribiero is a more traditional black metal vocalist who does add a bit of a frosty punch to contrast how naturalistic the sound is. The progressive eclecticism and the Brazilian folk touches have already became such staples that I’m wondering whether there’s any influence feedback loop between Lemos and Papangu.

Even if the sound has grown slightly more saturated due to the prolific release schedule, there’s so much about it that sounds unique and too gorgeous to put into words. From how the blast beats sound like the opposite of pummeling, how the acoustic guitars can interweave so flawlessly with the distorted black metal, how the electronic touches can have an almost video game soundtrack quality to them, and how evocative the whole experience gets to be. It’s just that it would floor me more if this was my first contact with it. Judging by how Lemos has unfairly not became a household name, I can at least rest assured that Mar Da Deriva will be some people’s first contact.