Enter the temple of VoidCeremony.
Formed in 2013 in the United States, the band now composed of Wandering Mind (guitar/vocals, ex-Archaic Mortuary), C. Koryn (drums, Ascended Dead, Chthonic Deity, Funebrarum), The Great Righteous Destroyer (bass, Cauldron Black Ram, Mournful Congregation, StarGazer) and Hyperborean Apparition (guitar/vocals, Chthe’ilist, First Fragment, Funebrarum, ex-Serocs) announces the release of Threads of Unknowing, its second album, through 20 Buck Spin.
When Threads of Unknowing (The Paradigm of Linearity), the first track, comes to crush us, we immediately understand that the band’s universe is as heavy and oppressive as complex, mixing cavernous screams and unhealthy atmosphere. Riffs are worked to the extreme, creating a real compact sound mass which leads us to Writhing in the Facade of Time, an as thoughtful but longer composition. We obviously have impressive drums and dark riffs in the company of raw screams, but we also notice chaotic harmonics as well as epic leads standing out from the ambient and dissonant darkness, which slows down before letting us breathe for a few moments with an airy keyboard, followed by Abyssic Knowledge Bequeathed and its abrasive rage. One will notice much more soothing bass melodies which contrast with the heavy and oppressive rhythmic basis which lets progressive parts come to temper the occult and incessant fury which is also reflected on Entropic Reflections Continuum and its haunting riffs. The band will of course end up accelerating while keeping this heavy and worked dimension, letting heavier and groovy parts create a dissonance with the most incisive elements while remaining extremely coherent. The heavy tones will shortly stop before the short At the Periphery of Human Realms (The Immaterial Grave) comes to present its soaring and distant sounds, but the band still keeps a touch of distortion and disturbing darkness, which will eventually explode with Forlorn Portrait: Ruins of an Ageless Slumber, the long final composition, which also places some slower melancholic touches into its heavy basis. Old School influences are also felt in the accelerations, but the band also relies on its Prog roots between Black and Death to close the album with fascinating and sometimes unexpected shades.
Complexity and chaos are part of VoidCeremony‘s soul, and it is with a certain talent that the musicians manage to organize it. Threads of Unknowing is definitely not for everyone, but the album proves to be a gem for any dissonance lover.
85/100