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COMA VOID
Coma Void

Self-released (2014)
Rating: 6/10

I know very little about these cosmic doomsters who hail from Germantown, Maryland, except to say that their debut album is one bone-shuddering experience that all doom metal fans should lend an ear to.

These guys have only been recording for a couple of years, but already they’ve released this rather frosty debut which boasts six tracks. As far as I’m aware, this intriguing opus is predominantly the work of one man; Okul. Okul clearly likes to combine remote black metal oddness with crushing, yet orchestral doom that is pierced with some unusual instrumentation, which gives the album a subtle air.

Of the six tracks, three are instrumentals. When you hear the sprawling sound of this record, however, you’ll see why it doesn’t matter if there’s singing. Each track sort of stretches out like some vast galaxy of sound, and in the distance you can hear those primal screams as well as some peculiar, almost eerie tinkering.

The so-called doomier aspect is relayed in those oozing landscapes, which evokes images of galactic coldness. This is nowhere more apparent than on ‘Plasma Lobe Exile’, which is a mind-numbing exercise in churning guitars and peculiar lighter injections that suggest unusual synth structures. For all of its ten minutes, the track does become a tad repetitive. Nevertheless, it still sounds rather mighty, like some meteor drifting through the blackness of space.

The monstrous ‘Oblivion Waltz’ is very much in the same mould as ‘Plasma Lobe Exile’, again reaching out like some oozing mass of gaseous weirdness. The alleged lyrics which are yelped by Suhail Hadar in that far away solar system seem too detached to really matter, but as one can expect when reading the lyrics, the subject matter hints at solitude and cosmic misery: “All around us is nothing, at least we have each other, paired by tugging strings, of gravity and memory”.

There is a lack of variety within the songs on offer; it’ll take a patient listener to sit through some of these black waves of regressive emotion, as Coma Void seem to have more in common with those negative black metal bands who dabble in the vast suicidal soundscapes. It’s probably unfair to describe Okul’s work as doom metal; it’s nigh on impossible to grasp the suffocating waves of the closing ‘Heat Death Threnody’, which just churns and churns for nearly 20 minutes before giving up the ghost.

The whole feel of this album is one of drifting aimlessly through some alien void with no real reason, with just blackness forever. Despite this feeling, I nonetheless sense no real hint of depression, but wish there was more to this cold blanket. Mind you, I’ve always wondered what it’s like to float through the galaxy unhindered by the air around me, so to some extent Coma Void provide the perfect soundtrack to that journey.

I do sense that Okul is a talented individual who’ll keep on throwing these sorts of alien landscapes out for his own pleasure, but we’ll have to wait and see as to how many others will join him on that journey through the darkness. While huge in stature, Coma Void’s debut offering is bereft of any signs of life.

Neil Arnold

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