VOIDCEREMONY "Threads Of Unknowing" LP (20 Buck Spin 2023) Upon the release of the first full length album ‘Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel’ it was instantly clear that California’s VoidCeremony were treading a path few walk. Technical Death Metal done not by the typical modern standard of robotic machine gun drums, overbearing dissonance and jarring widdly-widdly skronk, but rather with the gliding organized chaos and smooth fluidity of a jazz quartet. On second album ‘Threads of Unknowing’ mastermind Garrett Johnson takes the concepts on earlier display and summons evermore progressive and technically dazzling marvels of time-melting death black fusion. With the addition of legend-in-the-making guitar virtuoso Phil Tougas (Atramentus, Chthe’ilist, Worm, First Fragment) to the lineup, the two shredders compliment and play off each other with riffs and solo ideas that have rarely been tread in the Death Metal lexicon. Returning bass god Damon Good (Stargazer, Mournful Congregation) is once again a stand out weaving fretless bass mastery on par with Steve DiGiorgio, while Charlie Koryn keeps the vast dynamics at play together and moving forward. With an apt cover painting representing an ancient and forgotten future, VoidCeremony itself seems to be operating on an alternate Death Metal timeline that once made itself known, but only briefly and was soon left behind for more commercial appeal. Yet the portal has been re-opened and the merging of these boundless possibilities and directions are being freshly explored once again.
