{"id":80780,"date":"2018-06-29T11:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=80780"},"modified":"2018-06-29T07:28:58","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T12:28:58","slug":"say-hello-to-the-original-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/say-hello-to-the-original-void\/","title":{"rendered":"Say Hello to the Original* Void<\/b>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“We’ve reached peak void,” I said to my assistant the other day, over a charcuterie board and a bottle of Mendoza Malbec, at a place where one generally goes to acquire charcuterie boards and bottles of Mendoza Malbec.<\/p>\n

“Define ‘peak void’,” she said belatedly, still staring at a Groupon deal for crystal telepathy healing\u2122 on her phone.<\/p>\n

“Peak void,” I said, nibbling condescendingly on a wedge of aged asiago, “is the point at which the number of metal bands with the word ‘void’ in their name becomes so great that it shall tip past the cosmological density parameter, leading us to infinite expansion and, eventually, the heat death of the universe.”<\/p>\n

“So,” said my assistant, still swiping and staring at her phone (as is her assistantly wont), “bands with the word ‘void’ in their name are leading us into a true void.”<\/p>\n

“Well, a Sean Caroll or even a Neil deGrasse Tyson might quibble over the quantum minutia, but essentially yes.”<\/p>\n

“Well then,” my assistant said — “you’re not going to like this.”<\/p>\n

She turned her phone around to show me the screen, which displayed her email inbox, which was flooded with promo downloads that had been forwarded to us (me) by The Central Office ov the Toilet ov Hell. At the very top of the queue sat a new promo from a band called…<\/p>\n

…you guessed it…<\/p>\n

…Void<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Now, dear reader, before you roll your eyes so hard you pull your medial rectus muscle, let me assure you that this Void is no trend-hopping latecomer to the voidapalooza. Sure, the immaculate and infallible arbiter of all that is metal in music, Ecyclopaedia Metallum<\/a>, a.k.a The Metal Archives, lists 175 bands with the word “void” in their name. And true, out of these 175, a whopping 12 are simply named Void, one of which spells it “V\u00f8id<\/strong>” and another “V\u00f8id (a.k.a Void)<\/strong>“.\u00a0 Be all that as it may, the Void of which I speak\u00a0is the original Void<\/em>. [*Technically, the thrash metal Voids from Denmark, Greece, and Lithuania respectively all came first, but none of them exist anymore so we’ll allow it –Ed.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Who is the oldest extant band called Void?<\/p>\n

Void is.<\/p>\n

BUT WHO IS VOID?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The short version is that Void began life as an afterbirth-covered industrial black metal band, way back when that sort of thing was novel and cool. The ravages of time, puberty, and lineup changes saw them grow into a progressive black metal band with no industrial bits whatsoever. More time, a fully-developed frontal lobe, workforce drudgery, debt, and tragedy led to their maturing into…whatever this is:<\/p>\n

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I swear on my life there is no industrial metal left in their sound.<\/p><\/div>\n

Kinda looks like Portal<\/strong> fucked Coal Chamber<\/strong> and then, faced with an unplanned pregnancy, chose life —\u00a0<\/em>doesn’t it? Thankfully, Void’s current brand of I guess avant-garde deathgrind? does not contain any vestigial sonic expressions of their Portal and Coal Chamber DNA. I mean, with a gun to my nuts I’d have to say they sound a weeeeeeeeee bit closer to Portal than Coal Chamber, but without a gun to my nuts I’d have to say they sound more like Mr. Bungle\u00a0<\/strong>and Napalm Death<\/strong> practicing in the same room at the same time while the sounds of The Nordic Men’s Chanting Choir in the next room over come bleeding through the walls. Or like when you order a turkey sausage omelet with cheddar cheese but it comes stuffed with creamy-ass goat cheese instead and you’re kind of enraged, kind of sickened, but you’re kind of also like “Oh well YOLO” and you eat it anyway, at which point you discover a gastronomical intolerance to goat cheese which manifests in sudden projectile vomiting and torrential disfunction of your anal containment mechanisms. This is not a bad thing: We’re all just people here and I think we can admit that it in a sick, godless way it feels really good to blow chunks out of both ends at the same time. (Right?)<\/p>\n

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ADMIT IT.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think what I’m laboring to say is that while Void is not a post-metal band (they’re arguably more metal now than they’ve ever been) they are certainly post-genre<\/em>.\u00a0Last year, they released an EP called The Unsearchable Riches of Void<\/em>, which contains the lowest levels of black metal they’ve ever achieved. In its place: a virtuoso splicing of extreme metal styles that is hyper, aggressive, and suffering from a serious case of attention deficit disorder. Here, give a listen:<\/p>\n