Band:	VoidCeremony
Album:	Entropic Reflections Continuum: Dimensional Unravel
Style:	Blackened death metal, Progressive death metal
Release date:	June 26, 2020
A review by:	RaduP

01. Desiccated Whispers
02. Sacrosanct Delusions
03. Empty, Grand Majesty (Cyclical Descent Of Causality)
04. Binded To Unusual Existence
05. Abandoned Reality
06. Solemn Reflections Of The Void

I remembered seeing this when it came out and thinking "Ah, another doom-tinged OSDM album from 20 Bucks Spin". Boy, was I wrong.

Though it's not like the label is known exclusively for it, a lot of the releases in the past year have been exactly doom-tinged OSDM, and the label itself might have fed the wave itself instead of simply profiting from it. And though some of those OSDM releases did border on tech/prog death, none of them do it as much as VoidCeremony. This being the band's debut album the reputation of the 20 Bucks Spin label preceded their own, but they did seem to have quite a few EPs from as far back as 2014. I did manage to check the most recent of those, and while it's perfectly fine, VoidCeremony is one of the best examples of how to make a jump from the demo/EP phase to the full length one.

Though the progressive and technical nature of the album hits quite instantly, one of the most memorable aspects of the album, and partly why I decided to revisit it so much time after its release, is the fretless bass. I was surprised to learn that on this album it is not performed by the band's bassist, who doesn't participate on this recording at all. Instead the bass is played by Damon Good of Mournful Congregation and Cauldron Black Ram, the latter of which also released a damn great album this year. Normally I do not start the meat of a review with the bass playing, and if in a prog/tech album it is the standout, you bet it's damn good from Damon Good. Sorry.

Of course the bass is not the only exceptional instrument performance on the record, as I doubt Damon would've sessioned for them if they weren't exceptional as well. The vocals are probably the least interesting part of the record, most of them being in the one-note low-to-mid range growls, but they do their job quite well regardless, and the variation in the instrumentals more than makes up for it, especially considering how many instrumental moments there are. There's a lot of fluidity in the flow, and the band knows how to switch from pummeling and simpler to nauseating and intricate quite well. And the slightly rawer production definitely helps it to feel more organic. And as much as I though my initial assumption that it would be "doom-tinged OSDM" was shattered, the extreme emphasis on progressive songwriting didn't completely eliminate all tinges of doom, thankfully.

Probably the thing that really works best for VoidCeremony, besides the aforementioned fretless bass, is the balance they maintain between the simple and the technical, they know when to show off, when to slow down, when to show a whirlwind of notes and when to just blast beat you into oblivion. As a result, the record definitely feels longer than its barely-over-half-an-hour runtime.