It’s in this current climate of black metal that we’ve been fortunate enough to see some truly otherworldly acts come from all over the globe from all sorts of different musicians who’s different views on the genre have pushed it to the very limits, and it only continues today to extreme effect. Many seek to truly become one with the maddening void that’s loomed over black metal, but only a few dare to dive right into it and bask in the seething nothingness. It’s bands like Obscuring Veil that are exploring further into the void than ever before, and it’s truly something to behold.
If you’re anything like me, you look at an album’s cover art and hope to get an idea of what the album in question is going to be like. For many, it can make or break the simple decision of whether or not the album is worth investigation. It’s with “Fleshvoid to Naught” that the cover art didn’t really grab me despite being quite ominous and effective in its simplicity, it’s the album’s title itself and the experienced musicians behind it that drew me in. Luckily, the depths of darkness that are excavated with this record are a truly unique form of intoxication to the highest degree of malice as Obscuring Veil constantly carves out a hole to call their own in the mass of none. Simply calling “Fleshvoid to Naught” black metal is to use the broadest sense of the term for the genre as everything is taken to an extreme here. There’s no true form amongst the dissonant riffs, howling interdimensional vocals, and instruments that open and close universes with each song to culminate in a near 30-minute album of incorporeal madness that’s something to really sink your teeth into for hours and still not be able to have a firm grasp on what you’re hearing. But that doesn’t matter as to allow “Fleshvoid to Naught” to envelop you is the commit part of your soul to the void itself, and it feels devilishly good to do such as Obscuring Veil creates an exceedingly odd sense of satisfaction amongst their aural onslaught that is quite unlike anything I’ve ever been able to comprehend.
This is something entirely different, yet Obscuring Veil captains this ship of black as though they’ve been doing it for centuries. To experience this album is to touch a darkness you never knew existed before, and should “Fleshvoid to Naught” be just the beginning of what Obscuring Veil can conjure forth into this world of fallacies from their realm of blind truth then I’ll gladly become a deacon of the black to see what other eldritch rhythms can be called forth.
“Fleshvoid to Naught” releases on March 22nd via I, Voidhanger Records!
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