Album Review: Woe Unto Me – Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed (Solitude Productions)

Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed is the new album from Belarus’ Woe Unto Me. Out on September 29th via Solitude Productions. A double CD, the first is made up of 5 songs that deliver an immersive, bleak & atmospheric dark metal experience.

Opening with 13 minutes of pain & suffering. The methodical pace matched with the spine-tingling vile vocals of Triptych – Shiver, Shelter, Shatter creates an atmosphere of darkness that no light can brighten. The longer it goes on, the more you feel yourself slipping into the void. It shows off a lot of imagination & style, particularly when the heaviness is taken up a notch.

Of Life That Never Showed Its Face begins with a soft guitar melody & the sound of children talking. It’s an unusual sounding start that is improved by the sudden crash of instruments that drop a meaty metal sound on you. Being another lengthy track it’s no surprise that it switches between hard hitting metal & atmospheric melody. The haunting of the middle of the track is initially very ear-pleasing but it just goes on for far too long. By time it brings back in the slower doomy heavy riffing your mind is checking out.

Woe Unto Me don’t do short songs as the next two tracks of CD1 come too almost 25 minutes together. I Come to Nought continues the blend of slow doomy blackness & melody but does switch to an up-tempo/clean vocal chant that offers some nice variety in what you’re hearing. However the saxophone use is so odd & so jarring it derails the song when it turns up.

A Breath of Grief is an improvement though. Hellish, guttural vocals fighting a war with booming cleaner singing backed up by fantastic riffs & a beat that is like a drill to the skull. The best song on CD1. It’s followed by the 18 minute, yes…that’s 18 minutes of a slow, melodic beat. It goes on & on to the point where you feel like you can’t take anymore then switches direction to give some relief from the constant barrage of slow & methodical doom.

In contrast, what we get with CD2 is quite a surprise.

The moody, dark & melodic In A Stranglehold opens CD2. A track that oozes bleak atmosphere with its spoken word like vocals adding an air of desperation to events. Leave Me to My Sorrows continues the morose sound but is appealing thanks to the guitar melody.

Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed CD2 is all about delivering a dark & unhappy sounding atmosphere. Heaviness is not the name of the game here but it makes up for that with exciting & unique melodies.

Along Came the Imminence’s effects & chant-like vocals is nice sounding enough but by time the 8 plus minutes of Fall-Dyed Lament comes along things are stepping into boring territory. It all begins to sound far too similar to really enjoy & even the beautifully emotive piano that opens A Year-Long Wait can’t rescue it.

By time the final track, The Snide Sun comes along you’re likely to have checked out. When nice melody & softly sung vocals is all you’re getting across 7 tracks, especially one that is 45 minutes long it just isn’t going to have that much of an impact. Particularly as Woe Unto Me aren’t doing anything spectacular here. The imagination shown on CD1 just doesn’t come across as well on CD2.

Woe Unto Me – Among The Lightened Skies The Voidness Flashed Full Track Listing:

CD 1:

1. Triptych – Shiver, Shelter, Shatter
2. Of Life That Never Showed Its Face
3. I Come to Naught
4. A Breath of Grief
5. Drawn By Mourning

CD2:

1. In A Stranglehold
2. Leave Me to My Sorrows
3. Along Came the Imminence
4. Fall-Dyed Lament
5. A Year-Long Wait
6. My Joy Lies Behind
7. The Snide Sun

Head over to Bandcamp to pick up the album in a number of different formats & find out more about Woe Unto Me on Facebook.