Band:	Call Of The Void
Album:	Buried In Light
Style:	Punk, Grindcore, Hardcore
Release date:	May 2019

01. Disutility
02. Suck Me Dry
03. Living Ruins
04. The Master
05. Drowning Hour
06. God Hunts
07. Enslaved
08. ReDeath
09. Buried In Light
10. Wave Of Disgust
11. Almighty Pig
12. Lurker
13. So It Ends

When news broke of their breakup, I knew it was a mistake not to review Call Of The Void's latest album. When I re-listened to it, I was more than certain of it.

Call Of The Void is one of the first grindcore bands I got into thanks to this website back in 2015, when I decided to ape many users on this website and do a list of the stuff I listened to, and man do I disagree with many of the ratings I gave then, but I'll take the nostalgia trip. One of the albums on that list is Call Of The Void's Ageless. Even though at the time I didn't think it was mind blowing, I was curious to see how they would develop further. When Buried In Light, I listened to it but I already had other stuff in my queue and with a somewhat heavy heart, I left it be. Thankfully now I do have some time to right some wrongs.

I wouldn't exactly call Call Of The Void grindcore, especially not on Buried In Light, they exist more in the space in between sludge, metallic hardcore and crust punk, with grindcore obviously being a main component of that as well, but less so than on previous records. Buried In Light stretches more than any of those in both runtime and in ground covered, with the introduction of more mid-paced moments and vocal hooks, a bit more of a (Swe-)death metal and a Mastodon-ish sludge presence to make things more interesting than the usual savage attack of their first two albums.

This works both to their benefit and their hindrance, as I'm sure a lot of people probably expected a nice shot of fast grind instead of whatever is delivered here, and the slightly longer runtime may be a bit of a stretch as well, at least it may not have been if they had more time to hone their new sound, but alas that will never happen. Because as it is, Buried In Light does have at least 5 minutes that could've been cut from it, and it would've been a stronger album with just the meat of what it is, which is still insanely savage, with an added melodic touch, plenty of great riffs and vocal hooks, with enough emphasis on both the hardcore and the metal elements, and also contributions by members of Pig Destroyer on the final track, aptly titled "So It Ends".

I can't help but wonder like I did four years ago what they would've developed further. What I do know now is that if they were to reunite and come out with a new record, I would no longer put myself in a position to regret not having reviewed it. They also released a live album of their final performance and it's pretty good. So it ends indeed.