Wolok
Universal Void

Thus, with the alien and distant sounds of absurd distortions, in the impossible shades of black of the immutable and absolute night, through the disturbing and estranging atmospheres of a depressive black metal with feverish and sick accents, the French Lhükkmer'thz, Lord Naggaroth, and Cypher paint this fresco of the Void, terrifying in its extreme lucidity.
What is Wolok?
Wolok is the ultimate representation of the black cancer that has been gnawing at the world for centuries; Wolok is the monstrous and deformed child of the prevailing relativism that has killed objective reality; Wolok is the schizophrenia of the modern ego; Wolok is the torturous consequence of a life prolonged beyond the limits imposed by the laws of nature; Wolok is the victory of the artifice over the flesh; Wolok is the emblem of humanity collapsing upon itself; Wolok is awareness and desire of the imminent end. Wolok is Absence. Wolok is Void. Wolok is the future. Our future.
A prophecy that the band recounts through an annihilating journey beginning with a dark and perfect art gem such as "A Virtual Black Hole Called Wolok". The sound seems to come from the extreme boundaries of the universe, from the forgotten abysses of creation, where light has never arrived. It is something profoundly alien, frightfully Other, that Naggaroth's guitars manage to draw from the manipulation of a handful of notes repeated to the extreme; it is terrifying how these six strings can produce dissonances so fearfully foreign. This is demonstrated by tracks like "Nihil", where the riffing produces something that is not noise and not melody, but only the desperate scream of a thinking mind lost in the incalculable distances of starless skies; and it is confirmed by the sick arrangements of the monstrous fanfare "Universal Void", which opens on almost punk-like tones, flowing into an obsessive and chaotic sonic whirlpool.
Terrifying in their madness are also the games between ultra-filtered voices and disturbing keyboard backdrops, which chase each other throughout the album, tainting its absurd structures, but which prevail especially in the Xasthurian "Intelligence Swallowed".
Finally, it is worth noting the skillful use made of a drum machine with extremely poor and obsessive sounds, intervening with hammering outbursts to weigh down the tracks, with a touch of unsettling artificiality with industrial accents that permeates the entire composition. This contribution is fundamental in the already mentioned "Nihil", but also in the very sick "Oblivion", where the introduction of the artificial element is supported by a hallucinatory keyboard reproducing the sounds caused by the malfunction of the absurd machinery of some alien technology. This characteristic is also present in the album's only instrumental track, significantly titled "Last Breath": the last breath of Life is filtered and distorted by a machine, which continues to function without purpose, an idiot witness eternally narrating the miserable and appropriate end of humanity.
Speaking again of the promulgated message, it is evident how this record wants to be the cynical, extreme, and surprisingly effective response not only to those who accuse certain musical genres of ideological poverty, but also to those who criticize their much-targeted content (listening to the "stupidly" cheerful but dubiously disturbing openings of "Oblivion" and the title track, one can think of a subtle irony of the band towards the detractors). Wolok offers indeed a vision of the world and life that turns out to be, in the light of facts, considering all variants, calculated every probability of change, the only possible one.
To conclude, "Universal Void" is the blow that cuts the legs from under those of us still sick with trust in the human being, who relish the palliative dream of a better future.
The point of no return is reached, the irreversible decline has begun.
If a God exists, seek it in the immense vacuities of the interstellar voids; if hope survives, find it in the eternal cold of sideral spaces.
Aware of the futility of your mission, I sit here, with a smile on my lips, waiting for everything to end.

Dedicated to a sage