Band:	Voidsphere
Album:	To Await / To Expect
Style:	Atmospheric black metal
Release date:	November 16, 2018
A review by:	RaduP

01. The Void Awaits
02. The Void Expects

It's ya boys Fallen Empire Records releasing another atmospheric black metal album with "void" in its name. Time for a cosmic journey.

It was around August that Fallen Empire Records announced that they would cease their activities by the end of the year, which is a real shame, since they were producing a lot of amazing cosmic black metal (like check out that Mahr album I reviewed), but before that happens they'd be releasing a few more albums. One of them is this Voidsphere record, their second so far. And just like Mahr, Voidsphere is also part of the Prava Kollektiv, along with Arkhtinn as well. We don't know much about them; we just know they make similar kinds of black metal and they share some members to an unknown extent. So let's talk about To Await / To Expect (it was originally a "|" instead of a "/", but that would fuck up the website coding).

As can be guessed by a band with "void" in it's name, the music is incredibly atmospheric and raw. Even rawer than Mahr's Antelux, especially as far as guitars and drums are concerned, but those are pushed more to the ambiance-creating background, since this album's instrument(s) of focus is/are the synths that create an incredibly glacial and hypnotic feeling; these three instruments constantly change focus to emphasize a different side of the ambiance, but more often than not, the synths are up front. Vocals, though - those are always drowned-out and linger under the music.

With two 20-minute-long tracks and their repetitive nature of atmosphere-building, it's not hard to see why this would come off as too monotonous, but To Await / To Expect and its shifts of focus are done well enough to avoid that. And just like with the previous release, these really long songs take the two verbs in the title of the album to describe what the void does, like the last record told us that the void calls and speaks, so with future releases we might find out more about the void, with songs like "The Void Abuses Alcohol As An Unhealthy Coping Mechanism" or "The Void Wishes His Ex Would Let Him See The Kids", but so far ambiguous one-word verbs give the music a much more mysterious feel.

Voidsphere is indeed very similar to other bands in the collective, but does its own atmosphere in a rawer and more heterogeneous and interchanging form that sets it apart from its peers. And as with those, the journey can be taken for name-your-price here.