Voidceremony - Threats of Unknowing

Fretless bass goes "VREEEEOW".

(Originally submitted to the Metal Archives on March 20th 2024) 

I really need to come to terms with the fact that I actually enjoy progressive metal. For how much I tend to deride it on some of my reviews (ironically enough those that are of a progressive nature), I always end up listening to a good handful of releases, specifically those that are combined with death metal. Though some of my complaints about it being a victim of its own excess still stand, there’s definitely a specific niche I am hopelessly in love with, that being “spacey prog death metal”. It’s a relationship that started with Voidceremony’s 2020 debut, Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel, and has persisted to this day. Needless to say, I was scouring forums and websites in search of albums with fretless bass and wonky song structures on the regular. Thankfully, the quartet returned in 2023 with the much simpler titled Threads of Unknowing, which I was eagerly waiting for. Turns out, it was exactly what I wanted, for the most part.

On their sophomore release, the band returns with their signature sound of swirling and erratic songs that fold, unfold, collapse into themselves and are built up all over again, this time with a twist. This time around the songs on average are noticeably longer, and although the album is shy of being 5 minutes longer than its predecessor, it’s a much denser experience. The way “Writhing in the Façade of Time” and “Abyssic Knowledge Bequathed” develop over their 6-minute runtimes is nothing short of fascinating, with the former of the two in particular living up to its name, a slithering and contorting mass of riffs whose labyrinthine corridors are nigh on impossible to fully wrap one’s head around, not to mention the basslines. Those have always been my favourite aspect of Voidceremony’s sound and things here are no different, with the aforementioned track featuring some nice layered bass and guitar soloing, as well as some smooth walking licks underneath a staccato mid-paced riff. As for “Abyssic…”, it features an absolutely sublime solo around the 2:05 mark, which has stuck with me since my first listen when the record originally came out, as well as a brief almost jazzy section where seemingly every instrument embarks in a solo. It’s an experience that constantly shifts and moves as if it was a living thing, and that makes it endlessly satisfying to listen to.

That being said, the longer structures also turn out to be Threads of Unknowing’s partial undoing, particularly at the end. Following the well-placed and executed interlude “At the Periphery of Human Realms”, we’re being greeted by the grand closer “Forlorn Portrait: Ruins of an Ageless Slumber”, and man, if there’s ever been a case to be made about this band being aimless, this track is prime evidence. Clocking in at a staggering 11 minutes it’s their longest piece to date, and unsurprisingly, it is also filled with seemingly twice as many ideas as any other song here, a double-edged sword if there’s ever been one. For how great all the parts here are in a vacuum, I can’t help but feel like it just doesn’t go anywhere specific with all its ideas. There’s a sense of scope, but only in that there’s so many things being flung at the listener at once that you can’t help but be stumped in an attempt to process it all. Though I’ve always been a sucker for lengthy closers, the band sadly lost me on this one, especially with how lean every other song seems to be here. Take for example the quasi-title track that kicks things off. It’s the shortest tune here, dwarfed even by the interlude, but it doesn’t sacrifice its complexity or its riffiness despite its brevity, and its laser-focused intensity. It’s a shame that said focus waned and the band went full ADHD for the closer, because there’s so many great ideas in it that had there been some editing could’ve resulted in a finale that could be equal parts epic and concentrated.

As for the production, it’s is exactly what one would expect. It’s crystal clear, perfect for decoding the cosmic gumbo that’s the music at play, though despite its relatively light nature it still maintains some weight in the crunch of the guitars. The “rhythm” section, if it can even be described as such, is also handled well, with the drums in particular cutting through the mix in just the right way, propelling the music forward.

Threads of Unknowing can be summed up as the DJ Khaled album “Suffering From Success”. Voidceremony blew their debut out of the water in terms of sheer technical virtuosity, every instrument something worth analysing on an academic level, but in doing so they also sacrificed some of their focus in terms of composition. And though that issue is by and large contained within a single tune, it’s also one that takes up a third of the runtime, so it’s to be expected that it impacts the record on the whole. Even so, this is a spacey odyssey worth embarking on for any fan of mind-bending sci-fi death metal, or anyone who has a passing interest in the style to begin with.

Highlights: Threads of Unknowing (The Paradigm of Linearity), Writhing in the Façade of Time, Abyssic Knowledge Bequeathed

Rating: 84%