The Suffocating Void – Still Life EP

“Something has changed. Radically. And for the worst.”, begins his essay essay called “The Suffocating Void” influential anarcho-primitivist Kevin Tucker. In this writing, Tucker issues a dire warning on the technological void opened up by the Internet and social media in particular.

Taking their name from this essay, comes the anti-civ leaning blackened crust band The Suffocating Void with their debut Still Life EP. After reviewing Scavengers Circle, here’s another two-piece crust project from Sweden that grabbed my attention recently.

The five-tracker starts out by setting a haunting atmosphere coming straight outta old school black metal textbooks, which then takes turn into a wrecking crust havoc. The blackened vocals on this one are absolutely sinister while the rhythm comes from a constant barrage of programmed d-beats and dark synth sounds.

When the tempo speeds up a fair amount of blasts and tremolo picking can be heard ramping up the intensity which also gives a rough edge to the songs. However, they don’t stop there but add some classic Tragedy-style melodramatic crust elements to spice things up a bit. Especially, on the fourth song “Unfit for Life”, which I think is my favorite of the bunch. In my opinion, it’s absolutely great how such a minimalist project could sound so raw and catchy at the same time, taking elements from both old school and modern black metal, death rock, Scandinavian käng punk and crust.

Add to this some desperate lyrics about the horrifying future that late capitalism has to offer for all of us, and you have some really interesting record that I’m sure has flown way below your radar.