One of the latest examples of how the metal genre is creatively opening some borders, Vana is a New Zealand-based singer who has gained a notable following on social media platforms such as Twitch and TikTok. She has released a number of singles since 2022, and Trial & Terror is her newest EP and compiles some of her recent singles from 2024 along with one brand new song. Merging together a multitude of influences and sounds, Vana has created something that seems to transcend genre boundaries in the most entertaining way possible.
The six songs that make up Trial & Terror each hit some different beats, but all coming in hard under the modern metal tag. “Ragdoll” starts things off with flirtatious electronics, near-industrial pounding, and moments of chaotic merger between pop, metal, and rock elements. Vana’s vocals move between nightmarish screams to childish nursery rhyme delivery and hits stops at almost every imaginable place between. “Beg!” continues down similarly moody and sensual routes, cranking up the mystique and cranking it up from brooding below the surface to bubbling up to the surface, leading to a chorus that easily sinks its claws into the listener. “Harlequin!” moves in more creepy, carnival direction to start, later implementing more pop-elements and perverting them into sinister hooks as it builds up to a tumultuous boil of bizarre elements.
“Playboi” takes the biggest swerve, with hip hop beats and upbeat dance elements colliding with moments of wall-of-sound industrial rhythms and downtuned riffs swirled together with unhinged screams and a brutal breakdown. The only non-single track, “Noxious,” weaponizes the driving industrial elements with a futuristic hammering of massive riffs, and couples it with arguably the EP’s strongest, pop-driven chorus. The EP ends by cranking up it’s sex appeal to the highest levels, with a queer take on the biblical forbidden fruit tale. An electronically laced, visceral cut that feels as heavy on the riffs as it does electronics – all with Vana leading the way with confident, sensual singing and feral screams providing perhaps the strongest evidence of how she can blend multiple genres together and come out with something that feels unique and fresh.
Trial & Terror is a unique vision of alternative pop/metal that twists and slithers it’s way into something greater than the sum of its parts. It borders on the psychotic at times, in it’s attempt to overwhelm your senses in the best possible ways, and comes together as something full of charismatic energy, potent sex appeal, and visceral heaviness. Vana is onto something that has a wide variety of appeal, particularly to an audience that looks beyond simple genre boundaries.