ALBUM REVIEW: Of Void & Solitude – Crimson Throne

CRIMSON THRONE have managed to make waves relatively quickly. With little over a year since the release of their debut, eponymous EP, the English quartet have already been signed to the excellent Apocalyptic Witchcraft label and come out with the EP’s follow up, Of Void & Solitude. This album is a great mixture of solid, crushing black metal and powerful, subtle ambient flourishes to create a bleak and monolithic statement of intent, building on the sound laid out on their debut EP and setting a lofty benchmark for the band and their sound.

Beckoning opens this album on a really high note. The music slowly creeps to life, with some great, primal percussion pieces providing a solid backdrop for the rest of the music to build around. There’s plenty of powerful, minimalist guitar parts that manage to add to the epic feel of this song even more, and some dark, heavily distorted vocals adding even more depth and atmosphere to the proceedings. It’s a great opening track, and sets an eerie tone straight away.

Dalit Lineage is a unyielding fierce and bleak piece of music that makes use of acoustic guitar interludes incredibly well, breaking up the ferocious wall of noise that marks most of this songs sound. With hideous, cacophonous guitar hooks and eldritch, harrowing vocals, it’s not just a heavy track because of it’s intensity, but also because of its more jarring flourishes, which help to pepper this track with discordant, chaotic moments that ultimately make this song all the more vicious.

Indignant Slumber carries on in this vein, with some sprawling rhythm guitars and tight drumming patterns leading the musical charge on here. There’s plenty of great melodic hooks liberally spread throughout this song, which gives plenty of catchy and memorable riffs and serves to accentuate the visceral and aggressive nature of the rest of the music. The vocals add an acerbic and grating edge to the music, and are every bit as powerful and monstrous as the rest of the track. Towards the track’s closing moments, some of those dense percussive motifs that characterised the opening track, as well as some sonorous chanting, come into the mix, and make sure that the end of the song sounds monolithic and sepulchral, which is a great touch that draws the listener in for the fourth track, Blackened Sun; this track, by contrast with the three that came before it, starts out on a lighter and more sublime note, opting for cleaner guitar tones and minimalist noise, before the track fully comes to life. Even when the main part of the song starts, it’s not especially fierce or aggressive, and uses plenty of acoustic passages, measured, rhythmic percussion patterns and a few sharp, soaring lead guitar hooks to add some darkness to the mix. It’s a slow burning track that gradually gets darker as it progresses, without ever having to totally embrace the more ferocious side of the bands sound, although there’s a couple of points where this is hinted at.

Scattered, with its epic opening guitar motif, is a far more atmospheric and almost grandiose affair, with a huge, expansive sound which sounds great but still has plenty of heaviness to spare. A few acoustic guitars are peppered in amongst, The vocals that accompany the music are a hellish, bestial howl that does a great job of providing a sharp contrast with the music, adding a more acidic edge to what’s on offer musically.

Sightless Remnants opens with some eerie ambience that sets a dark tone for the rest of the music to be built around. The bulk of this track is intense, with thunderous drums, tight, crunching guitars and a dense, sludgy bass all creating a solid wall of noise, with some particularly impressive, grating vocals adding a ton of emotive weight to the music, shrill and embittered in contrast with the music’s tar thick and impenetrable sound. As the tracks second half rolls around, the pace lessens significantly, with the drumming taking on a more primitive, percussive approach, and the guitars setting a vast, powerful tone that sounds absolutely monolithic.

Ekur Calls, the record’s penultimate offering, begins with a dirge-like, hypnotic riff backed with tight, groove laden drums, which sucks the listener in immediately. It eventually shifts gears to become a razor sharp and intricate piece of music with some great dissonant parts that make for a more foreboding, claustrophobic sound. This gives way, once again, to that more mesmerising style similar to the one that opened this track. It’s a brilliant climactic effort from CRIMSON THRONE that sets the listener up nicely for the eighth and final track, Ironsides. This last track is a vast, impressive song that brings this album to a close on a high note. It’s a powerful and sprawling piece of music, intense and dark when it needs to be, with several great atmospheric flourishes thrown in for good measure. Dense rhythms and brilliant lead guitars provide plenty of excellent moments, and the vocals, arid and harrowing as always, add plenty of dark and brooding feel to the music. It’s an brilliant closing offering for an equally brilliant album.

This is an impressive debut album from CRIMSON THRONE. The music manages to capture the darkness and aggression of the lyrics incredibly well, and there’s plenty of musical depth on full display throughout, with the music shifting from visceral, cacophonous noise to lighter, more sublime ambience and acoustic guitar passages, with the contrasting styles blending really well and making for an eclectic and powerful record. The black metal performed here is definitely rooted in a rawer, old school sound, without becoming generic or predictable, and the atmospheric elements really add to the sound, rather than just being thrown in to help pad out the album, as some bands are prone to do. CRIMSON THRONE have created an impressive, dark and ultimately expansive sound on which to build their future albums, and they’ve already, relatively early on in their recording career, set a great benchmark for this albums follow up to surpass.

Rating: 8/10

Of Void & Solitude is out now via Apocalyptic Witchcraft. 

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