Trembling Void — Demo 1

Trembling Void is a one-man Canadian black metal project, which adds subtle touches of darkening 80’s genres to its grim sound- be it goth rock, deathrock, or gloomy synth core. With the whole thing topped off with waves of piecing and revibrating BM vocals. As its title suggests Demo 1, is the first sonic fruit from the project- it originally appeared on Germany’s Narbentage Produktionen as a cassette release in 2021- this recent vinyl reissue is on Lithuania’s  Inferna Profundus Records- coming as either black or marble 180 gr vinyl.

I’m reviewing a digital promo, so I can’t comment on the vinyl release- through the label's website details them as having the following- 350gsm. Jacket. Reverse side print. Inserts, and Black poly-lined inner sleeves. The album can be purchased directly from here. 

The release features eight tracks in all- five on side A, and three on side B- with runtimes of the proper tracks being between three and seven minutes a piece. We go from grimly ponding meets gothically chiming of “Remain Unsaved” which later on takes off into a more rapid galloping BM with some great artillery-like smarting cymbal work.  This is directly followed by hazed glum 80's rock churn ‘n’ melancholy spiralling of “Chocking On The Blood” which features wonderful use of the moody bayed ‘n’ spread shrieks…with the track fading out with an eerier electro tom hack, toning guitar, and gloomy choir vocalizing.

Later on, we have galloping riffing meets baying vocal haze of “Death, The Only Reprieve” which later on switches between churning blacked punk, and gloomy clamouring blends BM bounded and subtle drifting synth goth scaping. With the album playing out with the bleakly jangling guitar sweeps, bayed shrieking layers, and clattering drums of “Seasonal Negativity”.

You can certainly see why Inferna Profundus Records picked this release up for a reissue- as it's attempting to do something a little different, with its gloomily 80’s influence not diluting the true BM elements too much. A few riffs here do sound a little familiar from classic BM oeuvre- but thankfully these are only elements/ building blocks of the tracks. So for the most part, this is an impressive first release from Trembling Void- and I look forward to seeing how they develop/progress down the road.