ALBUM REVIEW: Ascension Beyond Kokytus – VoidOath

September 29, 2022September 29, 2022 Jack Butler-Terry

There are few musical genres as well paired with horror movies as sludgy death doom. The ceaseless violence of it – whether it’s in the pulsating barrage of riffs and blast beats, or the creeping atmosphere that makes the heavy moments that much more brutal – makes for the perfect horror bedfellow. Sure enough, VOIDOATH‘s debut record Ascension Beyond Kokytus is living proof of this perfect pairing; a record loosely based on John Carpenter‘s classic The Thing that stomps, prowls and tears its way through any soul in its path.

Opening track Orion-Cygnus Descent is an exercise in unbridled terror. Starting with a space age electronic soundscape that feels desolate and mysterious, the tension is broken by a cascade of hard and fast guitars and drums. When the vocals of Christopher De Haan come in, the decimation truly begins. Low, guttural and monstrous in the main, the cinematic horror comparisons are impossible to ignore. When VOIDOATH add secondary, cleaner vocals three minutes into the track, the effect is utterly stunning; echoed, distant shouts layered over the lead roars completes the picture of a monster in pursuit of man. The first instrumental break of the album allows the band to really flex their musical prowess halfway through this track. Bleak and crushing guitars, rumbling and inescapable bass, and threatening and powerful drums all combine for a thick, oppressive bed of stone cold doom. When the vocals come back in at the track’s slowest ebb, the result is nothing short of devastating.

Festered Sepsis Lacerations is as grotesque as the name suggests. Played hard and fast, with tortured squealing pinch harmonics thrown in amidst the maelstrom, it cuts a bloodied and formidable figure. Again, the vocal delivery is as barbaric as they come in the genre, a seemingly bottomless pit of blunt force trauma. Alabaster Ruminations takes a much slower approach without ditching the ferocity, seeming to take more from stoner doom in the beginning, before unfurling back into that cavorting, ruinous monster it already showed itself to be. There’s a breakdown in the middle that seems to abandon VOIDOATH‘s sludge/death/doom labels entirely, plunging into the realms of noise and grindcore, before calming (relatively speaking) back into the low, slow approach of their native genres.

Album closer From Gods To Morsels (which deserves to go down as an all-time great song title, by the way) ramps up the death metal factor, with the grittiest, grimiest delivery on the album. Short guitar solos and furious pace abound, the song reaches a fever pitch we had not yet seen from VOIDOATH, culminating in an ending so cataclysmic that even with every ounce of horror-drenched vitriol thrown at the wall, it all sticks. Ascension Beyond Kokytus has here the perfect sign off, and one that will be sure to stick its claws deep into your mind.

With Ascension Beyond Kokytus, VOIDOATH have unleashed a phenomenal first foray into the pantheon of sludge and death-doom. Unyieldingly brutal but without sacrificing tension and atmosphere, this is a fitting homage to John Carpenter‘s horror classic. More than that, it is essential, mandatory listening for anybody with an ounce of interest in death-doom, because there have been few quite so good this year.

Rating: 8/10