By Alex Montgomery
In the immortal words of chef Gordon Ramsey “It’s fucking raw”. I think that’s the most apt descriptor for the debut EP from Insidious Void: cooked on the outside but raw on the inside. They have the imagery and vibe down pat but in terms of real substance I feel like the three (four if you count the intro) songs here really needed more time in the sonic oven.
As far as first impressions go, ‘The War’ is a pretty unintentionally hilarious one, featuring some of the most synthetic and obviously fake sounding MIDI instruments this side of the ‘90s and makes what was supposed to be an epic and bombasting sounding introduction feel more akin to rejected trailer music for the original Warcraft game.
But I digress. If we judged metal albums by their overly long and cheesy sounding intro tracks, we’d have to throw out about 70 per cent of the black metal canon. The first proper song, ‘Trinity Downfall’ is probably the best of this EPs trinity. The introduction riff sort of reminds me of Nile doing groove metal which probably isn’t intended but after that they settle (more or less, this is the grooviest song out of the three, but incongruous semi-groove sections do pop up here and there throughout) into the Behemoth-esque Black/Death style they’re clearly going for here. Shane Hughes vocal performance I think is the standout element on this track but is sadly hampered by the flatness in the production (more on that later).
‘Upon A Dead World is next and is very similar to the previous song but with about 40 per cent more Great Value Behemoth riffs, a problem that sadly permeates this whole EP. The whole thing just kind of sounds like Behemoth or any other black/death band in that particular niche but without any of the memorable riffs. Which is made all the more disappointing by two of the members being formerly of Shrouded (one of the best bands our scene has ever produced despite their tragically short career) so I know they’re capable of better songwriting. All the sections here just sort of feel like strung together filler riffs filling out a check list of “metal stuff we need to put in our songs”. These all feel like parts I’ve heard a million times before and I think it speaks to the general sense of being undercooked I was talking about earlier.
These songs have potential for sure. Here and there I will hear a riff that has a hook to it, or they’ll do something cool, but those moments are too far and few in the sea of stereotypical metal-isms. The closer ‘Entropy’ has cool moments with tremolo picking and riffs that evolve into each other, but it really doesn’t need to be seven minutes long with so many melodies that go nowhere.
In terms of production things sound okay(tm). The drums are probably the best sounding element, even if they do kind of get lost in the mix with the vocals, which seem to have been compressed into losing any power they could have brought to the EP. The guitars are probably the biggest detractor to the sound: they’re too quiet where it counts and too loud in all the wrong frequency ranges which brings a lot of mud into the sound and strips the riffs of “oomph”. The bass is sadly pretty inaudible too; it gets two seconds to shine on the whole EP but spends the rest totally lost in a sea of mud which I consider to be a crime against my favourite instrument faaaaar too many extreme metal bands commit.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate this EP or have anything against Insidious Void. I just think for the ambition these guys clearly show that releasing something like this just isn’t good enough to get them where they want to go. I KNOW they can do better (seriously, go listen to ‘Ominous Divinity’) and I think they do too. ‘Entropy’ feels like something they rushed out the door quickly after getting together so they’d have something to book shows with which is fair enough, but one must also remember that first impressions count for a lot, and first impressions make it seem like they’d rather spend time glowering in the forest than in the practice room.
I guess my final words on this EP are “for the next one, try and broaden your pool of influences and try and craft more of your own sound and spend more time on each riff. A few good ones that sound unique is always better than a lot of bland ones that sound the same”.
‘Entropy’ is released on Saturday (21 May), with physical copies available at Insidious Void’s support slot with Acid Age at Belfast’s Limelight 2.
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