Whoever heard of introspective death metal? Well apparently, if you splice just the right amount of black metal into the mix, a delicate splash of industrial gloom and you’ve got the starkly named Emptiness. You may think that’s a rather unimaginative moniker for an extreme metal band but an hour or two with these guys will suit as a convincing argument for the band’s name. Whereas 2007’s Oblivion was a little more excitable and more oriented towards black metal, the follow up Error was more bleak and discordant. Nothing But The Whole follows the same trend away from something so identifiably death or black metal and into something that now has more in common with Godflesh than Gorgoroth. The sound is textured and all centred around vocals that are almost poetic in their arrangements, So, if you’re expecting anything other than dark and oppressive atmospheres, steady riffs and those walls closing in around you then you are going to be sorely disappointed, not to mention possibly having bad dreams for the rest of the month. It’s dark, but, given the trajectory of the Emptiness project into more atmospheric territory, is it dark enough?
Emptiness is a clever mixture of encroaching darkness and the utterly pitch black. It is, at times, heavily stylised death metal and at others bordering on pure noise. Occasionally these mind melting Belgians lift the curtain very slightly to let in the questionable light of gloom, but only to show you the utter pointlessness of your predicament. Then it slowly envelops you again to create the feeling of utter, well, emptiness. The band is the brainchild of Enthroned bassist Phorgath and guitarist Neraath but dropping such names is only going to mislead. Indeed the face-melting black metal triumphs of Enthroned’s last few albums will seem like a walk in the park compared to this bleak adventure. Emptiness is another genre mashing band that would find as many comparisons in the dark world of trip hop and industrial crossover bands as it would in pure death or black metal. A track like All is Known, for example, uses tribal drumming, sample-like riffing and audio clips which sounds reminiscent of something from the Al Jourgensen stable rather than from members of Europe’s purest black metal stalwarts. In fact, one clear comparison for me is Jourgensen-backed Deth Rok which I reviewed last year and was arguably more bleak even if nowhere near as entertaining as this.
There’s some weird effects and tracks sometimes crossfade in and out at random. At points the music fades into the background almost altogether before the tribal drumming begins to crank up again flanked by lead guitars pulling your senses this way and that and making unwary or unstable heads spin. Add to that a bit of pure industrial (Tale of a Burning Man) into the armoury of influences and we’re into the realms of back street despair. Nothing but the Whole is a bit of an affirmation of the Emptiness project and is certainly an interesting feast of sound but it never quite plunges you into the realms of true emotional darkness as I was expecting it to. It’s pretty heavy going with the oppression gauge at times reaching levels of physical nausea and with very little offered as a way out. But the way out is there and there is enough harmony there to hold onto to stop you truly slipping into the black. To be honest there is plenty in the extreme metal world and beyond that has made me feel even more dark, alone and freaked out than this. If that is its true purpose, which I can only suspect it is, then its falling a little short of what is possible with the basic ingredients here. The vocals rasp and reach into the core of your brain like an ever-present voice inside your head and this certainly has a corrupting effect on the psyche. But it never quite pins me down into that damp, forgotten cell as I thought at first it might. In fact I actually started to rather enjoy it as a bit of dark ambient entertainment. So I’m left not quite knowing where to place this. Maybe this will end up more in the realms of sonic fear but it is not there yet and at the end of the day these guys like a good tune too much to really scare the crap out of you.
(7/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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