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Illuminated Void - Veriditas - Reviewed By No Clean Singing! Sunday March 19 2023, 5:43 PM

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Illuminated Void - Veriditas - Reviewed By No Clean Singing ! Check it out here at this link: https://www.nocleansinging.com/2023/02/11/seen-and-heard-on-a-saturday-yskelgroth-pincer-consortium-fleshmeadow-illuminated-void/

I felt the need to move out of the fast lane after the first three bands in this collection, and to do that I picked “Virgo Lucifera” from the new Illuminated Void album entitled Veriditas.

This song comes with a video which reveals a changing collage of clips and visual effects that beautifully suit the sinister and unearthly sensations in the music.

And oh yes, the music is sinister and unearthly. The guitars glisten and ring like reverberating chimes, creating an aura of esoteric mystery and inviting psychedelia. The vocals are clean, and create a hallowed and reverent feeling, but in a way that chills the skin or tingles the spine, especially when they rise in frightening, gritty howls of unbounded passion or seem to wail in grief.

But make no mistake, all of that is balanced by big undulating bass tones and by drum blows that may cause you to search your skull for fractures. A heavy, woozy, fuzzed-out guitar tone takes over in an extended solo around the mid-point, and its writhing and serpentine maneuvers lead it into fire-bright elevations. The song is worth hearing for that experience alone.

The song made me think of other bands, including Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane (both of which are referenced as influences), but the musical amalgam extends into the heavier elements of stoner doom as well. I’m mesmerized by it.

There’s also a second song up on Bandcamp, a 16 1/2 minute one named “The Maze of Sleep“. I found it just as entrancing, and even more unsettling, in part because of the uber-deep demonic roars that dominate in the song’s opening and again later, and in part because of the impact of the dark, python-thick riffs, which are both narcotic and poisonous.

High above, ethereal swirling sounds reveal scintillating glory, and quavering notes seem to elegantly beckon in an extended, bewitching instrumental digression. But after that the music heaves and lumbers like a monstrous leviathan, a great beast whose haughty and horrifying advance is heralded by ephemeral sprites of fire.

Still more experiences await before you finish making you way through this maze of sleep, experiences of otherworldly tension and peril, as well as captivating acoustic strumming of a folk variety that’s both dark and resilient, but occasionally backed by terrifying howls from some sulfurous abyss as well as pastoral synths near the end.

I got thoroughly lost in this long trip (I mean that as a compliment). If you embark, try to make sure nothing will interrupt you. What makes the music all the more remarkable is that it seems to be the work of a single individual, Matt Schmitz from Wisconsin.

Veriditas will be digitally released on March 20th by Milwaukee-based Altrusian Grace Media. On the Bandcamp page it says, “Every download of this album includes a 50-page PDF booklet of art and lyrics”. I have pre-ordered it. - No Clean Singing

Release Date: 3/20/2023

FFO: Paradise Lost, Cathedral, Anathema

Location: Wisconsin, USA

Illuminated Void began as a dark ambient project fronted by Matt Schmitz (of stoner doom band Sleestak) and released their first self-titled album in late 2021, quickly followed by a second album in early 2022 entitled The Vesper Serpent. These albums incorporated haunting dream-like soundscapes with subtle hints of psychedelia and neoclassical traits and thematically revolved around alchemy, esotericism, and occultism. By mid-2022 the band was writing material for a third album as well as undergoing a massive shift in the overall creative direction - one that embraced the heavier side of music and paying homage not only to the influences of earlier works by bands such as Cathedral, Paradise Lost, and Anathema, but also the sounds of Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, and others. This melting pot of sounds allowed the forging of a new and unique style that still shone with the original dark ambient textures of the first two albums and yet elevated Illuminated Void to new sonic possibilities. The result is Veriditas - an esoteric listening experience wrought with dynamic twists and turns that invites the listener to go within themselves and their subconscious mind.

Check out this video!