This is the debut album from Canadian death metallers Gutvoid.
Featuring six tracks of monstrous death metal spread across 54 minutes, Gutvoid’s ambition is clear. Durance of Lightless Horizons is a grand slab of expressive extreme metal, and is definitely worth spending the time to explore. Let’s dig in.
Gutvoid’s doom-riven approach to death metal is underpinned by muscular riffs and deep growls. It’s an atmospheric cocktail of macabre melody and restrained aggression. Part old-school and part modern, this album sits alone in a timeless void of its own creation.
The band’s death metal is doom-laden and long-form. Their compositions are well-paced, with an emphasis on building music that twists and turns gradually. This mood-rich approach to malevolent death metal is rewarding, delivering six songs that grow inexorably as they destructively spread out their malignant tendrils throughout their sprawling running time.
The music uses melody very well, fostering atmosphere and drawing the listener in. A mix of dark melancholy and threatening hostility, the music’s melodic component is one of its most prominent features. In some ways it defines the band’s identity, (at least when it is present), sitting atop everything else like the master of all it surveys. It provides an emotive crown to the dark and gloomy death metal foundations.
Durance of Lightless Horizons somewhat reminds me of what Bolt Thrower might sound like if they received a strong doom injection, along with a minor progressive one, and a treatment that contained a blend of Demilich, Tomb Mold, Paradise Lost, and Blood Incantation. At least, this gives you a rough idea of what Gutvoid sound like.
What an impressive record. Gutvoid’s music is a feast of doomy melodically-enhanced death metal. Durance of Lightless Horizons is sure to establish Gutvoid as a band to pay firm attention to, and this is a great place to start with.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 