Honed in the black/death space, Emptiness produced one of the genre’s seminal works in 2014’s Nothing But the Whole. Keeping one foot in extreme metal, Emptiness subtly expanded their sound through increasingly far-reaching influences. Post-rock and post-punk motifs are engraved in the compositions, and ambient and industrial textures add to the record’s despair. Their subsequent releases, Not For Music and Vide, saw them step outside extreme metal. Black/death became mostly an aesthetic in Not For Music, where darkwave, post-metal, and post-punk became the fundamental pillars. However, Vide went too far in that direction, stripping their music of any extreme element and retreating into a dark, damned post-punk motif.
Their new record, Nowhere Speaks, opens with the short “Nothing But the Whole (Part 2)”, promising a recalibration. Soon enough, they make it clear this is no return to their earlier extreme metal days, though some earlier elements still resurface. Traditional black metal riffing returns to the compositions, but it lacks the discordant touch of their early days, much like Emptiness themselves. Coupled with Emptiness’ dark demeanour, harrowing vocal delivery and downtrodden progression, this reinforces the sense of dread.
Emptiness take advantage of the structural openness shared by black metal and post-metal, blurring the lines between these two scenes. “When the Whole Arrives” fluidly shifts between these two sides, where the ethereal aspect of post-metal collides with the eerie black metal past. It moves Nowhere Speaks closer to Not For Music than to Nothing But the Whole, especially in tracks like “Words to the Winds”.
In that instance, you can see the black metal side gradually melt into Emptiness’ post-punk aspirations, where the repetitive rhythmic framework provides a sense of finality. On top of that, they also apply a stronger shoegaze quality, following the footsteps of acts like My Bloody Valentine to clash the big, formless guitar riffs against a bleaker ambiance.
Where Nowhere Speaks differs from Not For Music is in the subtler adjustments it makes. It was a similar case with Nothing But the Whole, where slight additions of post-punk and industrial added an extra twist to the black/death onslaught. In this case, they unearth certain avant-garde elements and apply these to their rhythmic backbone. They have taken on the teachings of Chaos Echoes and applied them to their darker brew. “All For Nothing” unfolds an energetic and erratic style of playing, making their gloom less static and more menacing.
At the center of Emptiness’ music has always been atmosphere. Whether they are playing Portal-esque black/death or retreating into pure post-punk, atmosphere remains the constant through all their manifestations. Nowhere Speaks carries the same bleakness, a dread that the ominous, towering vocal delivery interprets fantastically.
The middle part in “Words to the Winds” best exemplifies this, with the instrumentation settling down to a near halt, allowing for a nightmarish grandeur to come into view. “The Clash of Forces” takes a different approach, letting an industrial influence provide the track with a determined, mechanical, repetitive structure. It demonstrates Emptiness’ command of atmosphere, which they treat as something malleable without losing its core darkness.
Nowhere Speaks is a very welcome return, and a return to form following the more stripped-down Vide. While the expectation might be that Emptiness would return to the days of Nothing But the Whole, that is not exactly the case, at least on the surface. Their extreme metal days are in the past, but they can still influence their presence. In that way, Nowhere Speaks maintains a dialogue with that earlier self. Though it sounds closer to Not For Music on the surface, Emptiness are descending into stranger, more extreme territory. In that process, they reintroduce some of the early days’ magic into their later self, resulting in one of the stronger releases in their catalogue.