By: Charlie Butler
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 17/08/2018
Label: Kozmik Artifactz
Forming The Void channel the best of Monster Magnet
through a heavy psychedelic doom filter, alternating between massive riffs and
passages of cosmic grandeur
“Rift” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1).
Extinction Event
2).
On We Sail
3).
Arcane Mystic
4).
Transient
5).
Arrival
6).
Ark Debris
7).
Shrine
The Review:
It’s
hard not to get excited by an album cover that depicts a woolly mammoth jumping
over a mountain in space. Fortunately the contents of Forming The Void’s
new LP “Rift” deliver on these weighty cosmic expectations.
The
Louisiana quartet waste no time getting down to business with the crushing
groove of “Extinction Event’. The
track channels the best of Monster Magnet through
a heavy psychedelic doom filter, alternating between massive riffs and passages
of cosmic grandeur. This is a trick Forming The Void hone
to perfection over the course of “Rift”. The middle section of the album finds
the band recreating the thunderous majesty of self-titled LP era Torche, particularly the monstrous opening to “Arrival” and the smouldering
sky-kissing solo that rounds off “Transient”.
“Ark Debris” and “Shrine” provide a powerful end to the album with Forming The Void at their slowest and most hypnotic. The
former is a particularly absorbing slow-motion voyage into the beyond with
huge, lush layers of sound giving way to bursts of triumphant doom. These
tracks particularly highlight the importance the production plays in the
success of this record. Chris Munson’s recording has captured the interstellar
scale of these compositions with the smoothness of a classic rock or prog album
but with more than enough dirt that no-one forgets this is a doom album at
heart.
“Rift”
is a strong collection from Forming The Void. These
massive tracks sound like they could take the band to a wider audience while
maintaining enough low end crunch to satisfy underground riff aficionados.
