Four piece doom/sludge/death metal outfit VoidOath crawled their way up from the nether realms of San Jose, Costa Rica in 2018. In May 2020 they released a three track EP entitled Illumination Through Necromancy, a 30 minute taster preparing us for the abysmal horror doom of this debut full length album Ascension Beyond Kokytus. Kokytus translates (by the power of google) as either Cocytus or "the river of wailing" which in Greek mythology was a river that flowed into Acheron and into the underworld of Hades or Kokytus; a rye whiskey barrel-aged stout infused with Cocoa... you decide which. It could also be something to do with the album being heavily influenced by John W. Campbell Jrs novella "Who Goes There?". First published in 1938, it was also known as "The Thing from Another World" or the extended novel version was known as "Frozen Hell". This story spurred on film adaptations with "The Thing from Another World" in 1951 and the most popular imagining of it , 1982s "The Thing" by John Carpenter. This is the reason why VoidOath caught my attention in the first place. I am a bit of fan of both Campbells original short story and Carpenters movie adaptation plus I am a sucker for a concept album especially if it is horror related. Going by the amazingly awesome cover artwork on Ascension Beyond Kokytus it could only be themed on these two Antarctic based monster stories. The snowy landscape featuring a figure in a familiar parker style jacket facing down a towering pink, hideous monster with numerous limbs, gooey tendrils and a pained barely human face instantly transports you to that research base and the memory of that poor dog.
Ascension Beyond Kokytus is only five tracks long but it's total runtime is almost 50 minutes. Their longest track "Orion-Cygnus Descent" is nearly 16 minutes long itself. You can tell by the song titles that this is VoidOaths imagined soundtrack to the movie. Track 1 "Orion-Cygnus Descent" could well be the arrival of the monster, track 2 "Festered Sepsis Lacerations" the teams discovery of the monster. These first two tracks were also the singles released before the main album release date. Track 3 "A Flare in Emptiness" is instrumental and the shortest track at just 36 seconds and could represent the initial panic, track 4 "Alabaster Ruminations" the ensuing paranoia and fear at finding the previous base destroyed and finally "From Gods to Morsels" the discovery of the alien vessel and the annihilation that follows. This is my take on it anyway.
The music is super dark and thickly sludgey. I am a huge fan of the dual vocals running throughout the album. In the line up they only credit one vocalist, Christopher De Haan, so I am assuming he is responsible for both vocal lines. His dark growling style is greatly enhanced by a higher and cleaner melody that is cleverly worked into the songs. There are some great spoken word moments too. As is the nature of the genre the songs do not change rapidly or dramatically but take their time to build and the more you listen the more subtle nuances are revealed. The instruments do sound a bit muddy from time to time so defining riffs or build ups are sometimes lost but the drums shine through on every track. Described by the PR company Ascension Beyond Kokytus "dwells on deep feelings of fear, despair, loneliness and horror, the album drowns its listener in seamlessly endless waves of crushing violence and noise." This is a statement that I am truly on board with and I really enjoyed the album.
Ascension Beyond Kokytus is due for release on September 30th 2022. The American release through Cognitive Discordance Records (Costa Rica) will be issuing a limited run of jewel case CDs. For the UK/European release through Cursed Monk Records (Ireland) there will be limited edition digipak CDs. These will all be available through VoidOath, Cognitive Discordance Records and Cursed Monk Records bandcamp pages, pre-order is available now.
