In the Randomised Record series, I take us both on an adventure to (re)discover my record collection. Fate decides: whether it be that obscure grunge album I bought recently or that emo rap record from 2017. Nothing is safe from the hands of the randomiser! I will listen to the entire album and highlight my favourite song off of it here on the blog. Do I still enjoy my records as much as when I bought ‘em? Let’s find out. Today, episode 12: ‘NULA’ (2022) by VUKOVI.

Another record from 2022! After Viagra Boys, Rosa Canina, Crows, and Melt Yourself Down, it’s the third album from this specific year in a row and the 5th in a total of 12 episodes. No surprise really, since I added a whopping 73 records to my collection that year. Not all of ‘em will have been released in 2022 but I’m sure a fair amount will have. Back to today, it’s VUKOVI’s 3rd album ‘NULA’. A personal favourite of mine from that year, since it peaked at #4 on my Album of the Year end list. My appreciation for this album shows in the Jam of Today Spotify playlist, given the fact that 7 (!) songs off of ‘NULA’ have been added there already. Since album opener ‘Departure’ and B-side opener ‘Attention’ are but mere introductory pieces, it only leaves us 4 songs to pick from today: ‘SHADOW’, ‘HURT’, ‘SAD’, and ‘XX’. I don’t really have an exciting story surrounding this album lined up (other than it having a lovely colour and being signed) so let’s just go over those 4 leftover songs to see which one will make the playlist today instead.

With VUKOVI having released many songs off of ‘NULA’ as singles (‘SLO’ dropped almost 2 years prior to the album’s release) most songs naturally got featured as Jam of Today already. To understand the story of the 4 leftover songs, let’s dive into this album a bit deeper. ‘NULA’ is somewhat of a concept album surrounding an alien life form called NULA. It tells the story, struggles, and revenge of this alien as it’s trying to escape its captivity. All in all it’s pretty much about matters we face here in life ourselves. Mental struggles, and how to escape such dark feelings: singer Janine Shilstone has found ‘NULA’ to be the ideal way of singing and writing about those issues. Many of the songs on this album are therefore quite emotionally loaded and ‘SHADOW’, kicking off the album’s second half, is no different. Combined with VUKOVI’s staple cocktail of electro-rock and nu-metal, it makes for a powerful yet somewhat saddening start of the story of NULA’s escape. The contrast couldn’t be bigger by the time we reach ‘HURT’, where NULA seems to have found belief and power, and ‘SAD’ which is drenched in a coping-sauce with lyrics such as “I’ve moved on” and “I can’t forget”. ‘XX’ then kicks off with a spoken word intro by Shilstone, talking about the future of the female of the species and overall spreading a strong sense of power and ownership. In fact, this song probably stands out as one where its message comes across as most powerful.

Now, I’m quite interested in concept albums but it does lose a bit of its oomph once it doesn’t feel like a coherent piece. ‘NULA’ certainly is all about one specific topic and does indeed travel through several stages of its story. Yet, it still feels like each song is its own entity rather than part of one bigger thing. For me personally, ’SHADOW’ stands out as one of the album’s most musically interesting songs and therefore gets the dubious honour of being the 8th song off of this album to be added to the Jam of Today Spotify playlist.