A desperate wish for the blindness of sleep… — Having forged new keys to the kingdom of distempered mankind’s eden of respite, our protagonist proves himself ruthless in his guardian appointments. While the ear strains under the screaming pitch of plebian dementia abounding en masse beyond the gates our disfigured lord finds himself incapable of detachment from endless sight. Collected, hoarded in a museum of vaporized mind-flesh alongside experiments of similarly forced transcendence all potentiate visions of godhede now attained, the resplendence of his heaving cache has left the eyes burnt lidless and boggled upon sight. Even with the marbled halls of the castle-bound crypt shuttered, all weeping vines pinching each corridor closed around him, these visions go on endlessly scourging the mind into restless stupor, attesting to the pain of seeing-all, achieving all and still knowing very little. Where the insanity of the Gods’ stolen-away immortality meets the endless search for knowledge we find multi-national progressive death metal quartet VoidCeremony aiming for their own dark empyrean ache of meaning on this luxuriously dissociative second full-length album. ‘Threads of Unknowing‘ almost unwittingly speaks to the ailment of ambition through fantastically blurred worlds built, a still tenebrous escapist sight framed by ebulliently stated shred metal and draining-loose sojourn. It is a listening experience which appears mindful only of its direction and run-on statements to start, ultimately aiming for a pristine ouroboric result rather than any truly tuneful countenance. As far as the ‘old school’ progressive death metal fandom is concerned it will be a mighty showing of technique up front and a frothing mass beyond, a feat built upon spectacular arcs of page-scouring, pen whipping in-the-moment bloom of the psyche largely by way of rhythmic inspiration.

VoidCeremony is the searching envision of Ramona, California-based musician Wandering Mind aka Garret Johnson who’d cut his teeth in death/thrash metal group Phantasm, a precursor to the long dormant Archaic Mortuary that’d developed alongside bands like Ascended Dead and Ghoulgotha in the San Diego area underground death metal scenery of the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. The formative years of the project would eventually culminate in the ‘Foul Origins of Humanity‘ (2018) mLP which’d introduced the band to a wider audience, including myself who’d certainly not heard the potential of where they were headed when 20 Buck Spin signed the group soon after. As I’d suggested in review of their debut LP (‘Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel‘, 2020) the crumbling, scattered brains of the band’s early days truly hadn’t solidified beyond the conceptual level until it was time to go all-in for a full-length and they’d certainly done just that. I’ve already written plenty about that record, naming it the #2 Best Album of June that year, and #39 on my Best 100 Albums of 2020 list but I’ll sum it up here in terms of my own fandom sparking off: It’d featured one of my all-time favorite musicians and was in the best tradition of 90’s progressive death metal. It sits in the sacred archives and no doubt I’d pulled it off the shelf numerous times, recklessly fueling the hype I’d had in mind for this follow-up’s arrival.

The serpent lain a-fray in a thousand shreds. — Much in the way that science-fiction often depicts contagion with clear as day stage make-up, plenty of black-painted veins and the erratic possession of the limbs, so does VoidCeremony introduce themselves as a new and very visibly viral agent for this second cycle with easily read prominent voicing which (arguably) downplays the riffs and the vocals for the sake of making room for shred guitar and virtuosic basslines; At some point we all knew that the resurgence of ‘old school’ death metal from the 90’s borne too late generation would find, with some expected rarity of success, a thread to follow along the way beyond classicist putridity and tradition towards their own take on progressive death metal… which thankfully in this case does not forget to be death metal as a point of purpose. In this sense VoidCeremony are a certain thing, a rare thing which is ancient in feeling but only possible today in terms of subtle blackened flair and loosened structural features but a rare thing nonetheless which has evolved in the space of three years. The greater point to be made is that the inclusion of Phil Tougas (First Fragment, ex-Zealotry) as co-guitarist, co-vocalist and co-songwriter means his slightly more ancient touch in terms of not only cumulative old-and-new progressive death sensibilities but also his taste for technical thrash, power metal, and shred oddities find his personality assertive when intermingled with the rest of the line-up. In plainest terms, VoidCeremony‘s horizons are lifted (and a bit purple by the looks of it) along with the possibilities explored here, though this means the virtuosic touch might be a bit much for some as arrangements tend toward Tougas‘ more performative side.

All engines are firing, all brains are charged as opener “Threads of Unknowing (The Paradigm of Linearity)” gives us a set of ‘Covenant‘-era Morbid Angel sized grinding change-ups before wobbling into ‘Focus‘-esque bliss, a quick and fleeting turn of phrase which gives us quick access to VoidCeremony‘s state of mind today. Those first couple of minutes quickly become the framing for the first of many prog-metallic shred guitar choke points, lead guitar indulgences which are generally placed in the spirit of Florida death metal’s most immediate prog-death channelers. Neither as urgent as ‘Unquestionable Presence‘ nor as patient as ‘The Sound of Perseverance‘ the headiest points of respite on ‘Threads of Unknowing‘ typically lean into a sort of jazz fusion influenced meander which is very much in keeping with the ranting, rapturous movement of the album in general. Though not incalculable in terms of actions per minute the pace is generally set to busied, flashing hot but never desperately frantic from the start.

“Writhing in the Facade of Time” reminds us that yes, not only is Damon Good‘s vision for StarGazer a rare arcane feat but his bass performances are tailored, or, utilized to frame VoidCeremony‘s songcraft in a similar sense of playfully voiced rhythmic gesture. Johnson‘s fandom of the Australian band (whom are a favorite of mine as well) is clear enough on each of the full-lengths this group’ve released and this means they’ve really given the fellowe a spot to shine in the line-up, while the first album focused on wilding fretless exploration for its biggest phrases here the choice of fretted or fretless is a matter of what best suits each piece. Likewise some room is made to better include the comparably notch louder lead guitars on this album, which are a bit too boosted for my taste. Multi-directional pinch harmonic driven riffs signal our way out of the song, the sort of unravel which speaks to the general spirit of the band’s earlier releases with their Immolation-esque percussive qualities while this recording is yet beyond precise by comparison.

The album certainly had me on board from the fire-up of Side A but it was “Abyssic Knowledge Bequeathed” that softened the furrow in my brow and struck me with a bit of awe. All of the elements which appeared engaged in a power struggle for dominant voice on the first two pieces now find a bigger step toward harmony, leaning into not only a heightened riff count but a few more verifiably ‘blackened’ nudges to said riffs throughout. This piece is a bit of a technical whirr much in the same way Ænigmatum‘s second album had been a couple of years ago though in this case the flow of this piece is entirely sleek, melodious and full of deeper breaths taken between moments of pure attack which maintain this feeling that VoidCeremony have kept their shoulders slung low and aimed for finesse rather than pure aggravation.

From their style of ‘new old school’ progressive death metal to their imaginative lyricism alongside the primordial rebirth of the cover art (per Juanjo Castellano) one can begin to see the modus matching up with the quasi-narrative, if you don’t mind a stretch of imagination per my own interpretation. The whole sci-fi trope of a nowadays civilization happening upon the remnants of a far more advanced but long dead culture seems to weave into the fray here. The prose within is cryptic enough to suggest wonderment for future and past alike and I think this stems from a mindset which is conscious of history just as much as it hungers for the unknown. Perhaps it is only my need for irony that’d suggest extreme metal’s rediscovery phase still isn’t sure what to make of the old tech discovered though at least in this case the standards of old are consciously addressed, a high bar is set or even occasionally ousted for wizened study beyond.

Side B has one small point of frustration which ultimately irons itself out wherein “At the Periphery of Human Realms (The Immaterial Grave)” is a four minute instrumental piece which appears readied to break into a ‘Worlds Beyond the Veil‘-era Mithras sized song as the opening moments loom yet it manifests as a simple sort of fill to avoid a bit of exhaustion between two more demanding pieces. Before that point we get an entirely reworked version of “Entropic Reflections Continuum”, a song which we’d heard an earlier version of on their betwixt album demo tape ‘At the Periphery of Human Realms‘ in January this year. At that point I’d felt like I knew the language of this album well enough, the performances had steadied and all but I’m not sure it’d prepared me of the 11+ minute crawl and roar that was closer “Forlorn Portrait: Ruins of an Ageless Slumber”. A chance to get a more melodic arc of riffs worked up in approach of a The Chasm-esque stride toward the midpoint before the bass guitar leads begin to fire off, the fretless pokes out a bit, and leads begin to trade back and forth. Some of this feels almost jammed at points but never so loose that any notes are scrambled out of place or set to bleed away any precision from the experience.

That final piece best highlights both what I’d enjoyed most and least about ‘Threads of Unknowing‘, first the more densely packed rhythmic nuance of the music which lands some incredible hits when aiming squarely for a rush of well-set riffcraft. In the second half of the song the focus is upon sauntering n’ shredding guitar music which recedes from death metal’s purpose towards prog-metal station and, perhaps a very classic sense of early-to-mid 90’s progressive metal. These two worlds fit together in functional space, the combination makes technically sound sense and it is no easy feat but they don’t always generate a clear tone. That feeling of eerie release which comes from the lead guitars often skews somewhat upbeat for my taste, especially when set alongside the tumultuous trampling of the rhythm section, and this leaves me wanting more guitar effects or something more characteristic to justify their prominent spiking in the milieu.

The joy of listening to ‘Threads of Unknowing‘ was reserved for repeat listens as the ~37 minute run is substantial but packed with detail, all manner of tightly orchestrated rhythms and flashing feats arrive at such a clip that even the fluid, glowing nature of 3-4 points of major respite weren’t enough to soak and reflect upon the sheer number of statements available. Many prog-death records are equally if not more dense but in this case VoidCeremony make the case that each and every moment counts for something, even a quick bit of phaser-drenched drums kicking about after a song ends appears to hold some sort of meaning in their realm. The experience sunk in best on the second-in-a-row listen in most cases beyond the first as a result of wanting to pursue and parse every detail of what they were stewing. That said, I couldn’t necessarily argue that VoidCeremony are writing catchier songs at any given point here, in fact the virtuosic elements begin to eek away at a few of the more immersive rhythms available, but what they (arguably) trade away in tunefulness we gain in professional and crystalline representation of this realm they’ve conjured. While this is the second full-length and should prove a defining moment for the group I’d felt they’d only begun to achieve something a bit bigger than previously imagined here and that there is yet much more of this sound to explore be it the jazz fusion-tipped blade of certain pieces or the performative trade-off moments they create between vocals and lead guitar hurtling. — One of the most entertaining and thus far enriching death metal records I’ve cracked into this year and surely one to blow a few minds, even those still reeling from their first records impressive showing. A very high recommendation.

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