Temple of Void – Summoning the Slayer
Release Date: 3rd June 2022
Label: Relapse Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Doom.
FFO: Incantation, Hooded Menace, Bolt Thrower, Paradise Lost.
Review By: Rick Farley
Like a slow crawling corpse, Detroit Michigan’s Temple of Void slithers their way into the cavernous gap between doom metal and subterranean death metal. Massive sounding waves of churning heaviness and atmospheric doom-laden melodies adorn the deep tomb walls of the bands highly anticipated fourth LP Summoning the Slayer, set to be released on Relapse Records. Since their debut album in 2014 the band has evolved ever so slightly with each release adding different yet subtle elements that enhance their doomy death metal sound and further cement them as the absolute gold standard of the genre.
The fusing of slow-moving to mid-tempo oppressive death metal riffs and melancholic melodies creates a turbulence within the music that’s somehow beautiful yet brutish and sepulchral. There’s a dismal droning quality that sucks you in and will not let go. Nurturing while it nastily punishes you to near obliteration. Few bands have the organic exuberance to balance that thin line. Summoning the Slayer feels aware of itself like a ferocious beast awakening from a deep slumber ready to feast on whatever crosses near the cave entrance. I cannot stress enough how massive this record feels, it’s engulfing and pounds the living daylight out of you. Subdued tinges of non-metal components flesh out the hulking columns of heaviness and desolation, which maintains a unique, fresh take on the genre.
The Transcending Horror shows that dynamic masterfully. The track has textural beauty, but is on the verge of sounding completely twisted and disjointed. The first half of the song is extremely heavy, but not in a traditional chugging riff sense. The thick moving bass line and distorted dissonant chords mixed with clean but creepy guitar passages and deep growls is unnerving. The airiness during the clean passages and chords used has an almost grunge like vibe, it’s subtle and adds to the gloomy feel of the music. Small nuances like this keep this band a step above everyone else. The track takes a more brutal turn near the four-minute mark, with a bludgeoning riff and utterly warped sounding melody overtop. It’s so unnerving, I could picture that’s what the inside of a serial killer’s mind sounds like. Just a sick droning and discordant hammering of your senses.
Deathtouch is devastatingly heavy. A huge wall of guitars and deathly bellows crash down on the listener, engulfing everything, until funereal melodies reach out for comfort. A rumbling bass line takes over while gothic distorted string picked notes ring out. It’s breathtaking, epic, and consuming. A faster paced crunchy trilled riff creates more tension within the song and demolishes everything only to go back to the previous haunting and soul wrenching wave of sound.
The stunner on this album is the mesmerizing Dissolution. The track is a beautiful acoustically string picked example of seventies rock/singer-songwriter motifs, hinting at The Moody Blues and Nick Drake. Being the only clean vocals on the record, they maintain the overall sound of isolation with a slight effect that creates a watery, cave like echoic sound. The song is sorrow filled and gloomy, but has luscious strings and orchestral elegance. Adding a bit of psychedelic vibe to the record, it absolutely works within the context.
Summoning the Slayer is a seven song, forty-minute masterpiece of cavernous, disgustingly weighty and doom filled song crafting. This colossal beast grooves, has hooks and will, without remorse, smash you into the side of a mountain and then caress your lifeless body with its sombre yet hopeful melodies. The album was produced, mixed, and mastered by Arthur Rizk. It’s a living, breathing behemoth of aural depredation. Temple of Void continues to outdo their previous album with each new release renewing their focus each time with better songwriting than the last, this is an album that I foresee being hard to top. By anyone!
(5 / 5)
