Void King are ten years deep and still haven’t bothered to sand off a single splinter. Thank fuck. With Chapter II, they’re just slamming it through a different chunk of space rock, carving slow-burning sermons into the walls of whatever celestial ruin they’re holed up in. It’s a kind of relic. Feels less like a release and more like they dragged it out of the dirt, smudged and screaming.
This thing doesn’t “progress” the genre, and thank the burning void for that. Progress is for tech bros and industry panels. This is doom with mileage – blistered, scorched, and high on its own gravity. The whole album moves like it’s carrying a body bag up a hill in the rain. Real trenchcoat-in-July energy. You’re either with it or in the goddamn way.
They say it’s meant to be listened to start to finish – and they’re right, obviously. Skipping around would be like jumping into the middle of a pagan ceremony and asking who’s got aux. Don’t be that asshole. It’s all about that total crawl, the long unspooling, the patience to let things rot in real time. Gnarled, smoky, weirdly tender weight.
You can feel the years in this thing. It’s not some young band smashing fuzz pedals and yelling about weed. Void King’s fuzz is tired in a good way – like a priest who’s lost faith but still shows up to give the sermon, voice cracking, eyes dark. The riffs don’t just chug, they ache. Every track feels like it’s holding onto something it should’ve let go of three records ago, but didn’t, and now it’s all bleeding through the amp.
Vocals – somewhere between a haunted preacher and a hungover demon. He’s not shouting for effect – he’s dragging something out of his ribs and hoping it lands. And the whole band gives him room to unravel. No overcrowding, no “check out this fill” moments. Just space and damage.
The album cover art – a fractured altar of red, black, and bone, as if someone dragged a palette knife across a nightmare and left it to dry under blood moonlight. It doesn’t depict anything concrete, but you feel it more than see it. A smothered forest fire? The heat-ripped walls of a collapsing chapel? Doesn’t matter. What it does is match the music perfectly – chaotic yet deliberate, violent but not mindless. Like the songs themselves, it’s not trying to guide you – it’s trying to drown you. Every brushstroke screams unease, dissonance, some ancient memory clawing back through ash. You look at it long enough and swear you can hear the amp hum. It’s not album art – it’s the first note, before you even drop the needle.
Live shows are coming and if you’ve ever stood in front of a speaker stack and felt your spine buzz like a downed power line, you know what to expect. It’s not gonna be a “performance.” It’s gonna be a collapse. A sermon. A dirge. Maybe a little joy in there, if you listen hard enough through the filth.
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Released by Argonauta Records on April 25th, 2025
Music source for review – Grand Sounds PR
