Album Review: VoidOath – “Ascension Beyond Kokytus” (Doomsludge)

Written by Barlovv

“Aeons in fall, deserted vessel
Frenzy thoughts, slaver spewed
Mutated body, through stars descent
Plunging into Orion-Cygnus, astray“

This was an immediate must-listen the instant that I saw that beautiful fucking cover. I’m apparently the easiest lay on earth for art inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing. Thankfully, the cover delivered on its lofty promises and gave me an insanely gnarly doom album – self described as “Abysmal Horror Doom” by the band, and you won’t catch me disagreeing. The record feels like being stuck in a cave hiding from a blizzard, before you realize you’re going to have to fight a bear with your bare hands. Also the bear is an alien monster.

Hailing from Costa Rica, VoidOath are a band you should be paying close attention to if you’re not already. They’re offering up some absolutely crushing doom here, an oppressive and massive weight that delivers every single thing that you want from an album like this. There is also just that fantastic iciness that comes along with doom like this that kind of gets me hyped for the impending cold weather – especially as we come up on a frigid -30° Fahrenheit up here in northern British Columbia. I can see this being blasted out across the frozen wastes when I walk my dog.

Christopher De Haan delivers excellent and ferocious vocals and guitar, backed up expertly by drummer Gabriel Ortiz, Jose Rodriguez on guitar and synth, and bassist Alan Salas. This is the first full-length from VoidOath, but their previous EP Illumination Through Necromancy, was extremely well received, so there’s a lot to be excited about here.

At 49 minutes across 5 songs, you can likely already guess at the kind of sludgy doom that you’re going to get here, and Ascension Beyond Kokytus will not let you down if that’s what you’re looking for. It trudges and traipses and moves with all the shuddering violence of a mortally wounded beast. The guitar tone is fat and buzzy, the bass is an enormous bottom end presence, and De Haan‘s vocals are the sort of horrifying cavernous death growls that feel like they’re drawn straight from the pits of hell. From the nearly 16-minute(!) opener, “Orion-Cygnus Descent”, I was fucking hooked on this monster, and it never lets up once it’s dropped that first brick on your chest.

At this point I run the risk of repeating myself, but the fact is the fucking thing just rules hard and needs to be on your radar. The music coming from outside of North America is just so fucking good and so often tends not to get the same attention as stuff coming out – especially out of the US. Put some more fucking international metal in your rotation – you won’t regret it.

Abysmal horror doom is such an extremely “me” sub genre, and I’m so glad that it exists. I would like to formally request more bands dive into this beastly genre right now. Okay thanks.

THE BOTTOM LINE

VoidOath is releasing hands down one of the gnarliest doom albums that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing this year and you need to hear it, too. Don’t let it pass you by, you’ll be sorry. It’s a frozen wasteland of an album – and I mean that in the absolutely best way.