Review by Jeger on February 7, 2025.

Let the tears fall because nothing grows without water. Tell that to a depressed person… Some of us endure while others just give up, toss in the ole towel, raise the white flag! Shoot themselves in the head… There's a special place within the world of art for the depressive. It can be found in obscure places like out on the fringes of an extreme metal sub-genre or in some Bohemian starving artist douche bag's studio downtown. Wherever it's found, It feels like home to the afflicted, like that bizarre sliver of comfort we feel during times of not even being able to get out of fucking bed. Artists representing a myriad of genres over the decades, from Johnny Cash to Trent Reznor have been creating music that is inspired by negative emotions or suffering, and it's been cute, but if you really want to get down to the bottom of it, to the heart of the matter, down to where it really smarts then you go straight to the finest dark art - the great craft of black metal.

Depressive/suicidal black metal is some of the most striking music the genre has to offer. Advent Sorrow's "As All Light Leaves Her" is the greatest in my opinion. There's so much beauty in the concept of just giving up and letting go. The freedom of it and that final release from it all. And these liberating sentiments are enriched with black metal of a most elegant quality: the soul, the melody and even the drama of it all is simply irresistible. Naturally, the Finns do melancholy better than anyone. It's dark most of the time, alcoholism and domestic violence are common in many parts of the country and people are just cold a lot. It's a depressing place to live if you're not insane like Alexi Laiho. Finland is home to some of the world's finest black metal bands; a tradition that began in 1989 - 1990 with the formation of Archgoat, Impaled Nazarene, Beherit and Barathrum.

Well into the future now and far beyond the olde days into a time where Suomi black metal domination is the norm. There's not much to be known about Finland's Void of Hope. They are not an anonymous band but the members don't really feel that the revealing of their identities on an album sleeve is important, they're inspired by depressive bands like Lifelover and Coldworld, and their debut Proof Of Existence LP (01/21/25 Avantgarde Music) was recorded in some shit hole somewhere out in the freezing darkness of Finland over the span of five days is what you now know. What I know going in is that Proof Of Existence is a weapon of a black metal record. Is it still considered a weapon if you use it on yourself? Anyway, no two tracks sound the same and the torqued flow of the titular track alone - its grooves hypnotizing and its Urgehal-like grime permeating into what becomes a most volatile sonic environment alive with all sorts of creepy shit - is pure shit-kicking good times. Not really depressive at all, more than that now, transcending the abyss of suicidal ideation into the azure of epic fucking black metal…

Like the soundtrack to someone's life weeks leading up to the point when that person decides to jump off of a bridge… Drama, sorrow, bitterness, sickness and dread incarnate, but with a hint of this almost Mastodon - "Crack the Skye" type of epic prog flavor in "The Hollow Hymn" to fan the flames of perdition into a blaze before some really disturbing cinematic parts unfold during "Inner Peace". Great job with the aesthetic and what a brilliant piece. Depressive as fuck, but in ways that supersede the typical depressive BM stuff by a light year or more. There's power here, passion and catharsis, but moreover there's cohesion. It's like they've been at it together for decades. A journey of a record but an exciting one. Edge of your seat as you travel at tortuous speeds through diseased psyche one minute and plummeted into a depressive quagmire the next as oppressive tremolo riffs and dense blast-beats literally beat you into fetal position.

You remember that time you met that dude at the bar and just hit it off? Bro vibes all night and just big balls swinging, but then you never saw the dude again? This is like that. Just in love with this thing off the break. Definitely not your conventional depressive black metal album, definitely not a textbook Finnish BM endeavor either. No Satanic Warmaster vibes or Horna juju, only marching through the depths of sadness and scaling the heights of redemption's promise - a modern dark arts specimen of a black metal album. Put it on if you wanna either get all epic on everyone or hang yourself. The choice is yours...

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Review by Michael on February 12, 2025.

Ah well, these were good old times when you could buy an album only because of its cover. I remember back in the 90s when stuff like "The End Complete", "Clandestine" or the super underrated "Dehumanizer" came out. Cover? Check! Music is probably great, too.

With the Polish band Abominated it is the same. I saw the cover and instantly asked for the album (thanks again for sending me and I'm really sorry for that delay in reviewing it!!). The really morbid cover is so early 90s – a fantastic job by Juanjo Castellano. There are so many similarities to the early classics by Dan Seagrave, alone this artwork is really worth mentioning.

But we are here mainly to talk about the music, I almost forgot. On Traumatic Putrefaction which is the debut album by the quintet from Warsaw you can find some pure, brutal old school death metal. Of course (and I guess that this will never ever happen again) they don't reinvent the death metal wheel but what they do here quite well is to combine some different country styles but like on most debuts, there is still some space for improvement.

While the opener "Forbidden Pleasures Of Self-Immolation (Opus Magnum .44)" is more or less some worship to the Swedish classics (preluded by a quite atmospheric intro that reminds me of some old Revel In Flesh), there are also some more brutal death metal vibes to find that are heavily inspired by bands like Immolation or Cannibal Corpse ("Stench Of Life"). Here and there are some really sick soli to fine like in "Sacrificial Defilement" or the title track which sometimes remind of good old fucking Slayer.

Entertaining and making the music a little bit more lighter and diverse are the catchier, groovy parts when the guys don't mutilate the listener but cause some blunt force trauma with a baseball bat. "Senseless Barbaric Insemination" (hell yeah, what a title!) starts with some creeping drumming but gets lost after one minute in some more brutal death metal not unlike a stinking bastard between first Dismember and old Cannibal Corpse and also the galloping part in "Blasphemous Convocation" is cool. The closer "Slave To Depravity" might be the catchiest one on the album which the band also could sell a lost Dismember track.

Talking about the instruments, the drums are pummeling relentlessly on the nine tracks as if there was no tomorrow (hats off to Ordynathor, their drummer), the guitars are buzzsawing like hell and vocalist Greg (the one or the other might know him from his other band Martyrdoom) is grunting and wheezing like hell. You can clearly hear that these guys know how to work with their instruments.

Technically they don't have to hide behind the bigger names I already dropped. Also the sound on Traumatic Putrefaction is really good; here Pawel Sota has done a really great job. But what in my humble opinion is sometimes missing is the red line in the compositions. Neither they are bad nor boring, but in some cases it sounds a little bit too chaotic. Their approach is absolutely comprehendible but sometimes a little bit less is a little bit more if you know what I mean. I guess if they had put some more catchy parts into the songs, they would keep in mind much easier. It is a really solid death metal album performed by skilled musicians but there are some nuances that are still lacking to play in the death metal Champions League.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10