#profound-lore — Public Fediverse posts

Canadian death metal remains one of the country’s most dependable exports. Our neighbors to the North must put something in the water because high-caliber extremity seems to ooze from the trees like maple syrup. The next such group vying for international market share is Toronto-based quintet Gutvoid. Their debut, Durance of Lightless Horizons, contained flashes of brilliance, but occasionally lost focus due to its length. Yet, Steel still found it signaled a group with all the marks of greatness. Three years and an EP later, their sophomore release, Liminal Shrines, now finds the Canadians launching the first of a two-part concept that tells dark, supernatural stories of protagonists who pass through liminal gateways and emerge transfigured. Prepare yourselves—it’s time for Portal Kombat.

Musically, Liminal Shrines fits its theme perfectly. Whether it’s a scholar reciting a spell that causes his soul to leave his body (“Spell Reliquary”), a person dying in their sleep and becoming a ghost (“Lead Me Beyond the Sleeping I”), or workers on a job in deep space accidentally releasing angry spirits that possess them (“Chasm of Displaced Souls”), Gutvoid blends classic death metal—à la Bolt Thrower—and doom-crusted horror. The resulting barrage of reality-twisting shifts feels like one is being dragged through a vortex of riffs and rhythms. Balancing Morbid Angel’s brute-force with thoughtful composition, tracks like “Smothering Sea” and “Spell Reliquary” sport pummeling riffs that often transition into dissonant alarms and spiraling arpeggiated guitar work, while the record’s bulkiest tracks (“Chasm of Displaced Souls,” “Lead Me Beyond the Sleeping I”) play things safer, prioritizing melody and weight over the adventurous aggression of the album’s earlier tracks.

Liminal Shrines by GUTVOID

Across Liminal Shrines’ front end, Gutvoid shows the range of their talent and songwriting chops. Intro tracks are typically very hit or miss, but curtain-raiser “Ruinous Gateways” sets the tone well, with a thick, audible bass presence and its sashaying, tremolodic guitar lines that feel purposeful rather than ornamental. From there, Gutvoid shows notable command of dynamics and structure. “Spell Reliquary” constantly morphs through melodic arpeggios, walking guitar bridges, and spiraling leads, creating a midpoint packed with engaging twists and turns. Although it ends up toiling for over eight minutes, it never loses its way. “Smothering Sea” raises the bar even higher, folding Meshuggah-style dissonance into rustic, psychedelic grooves and expressive, cosmic–toned leads. The approach is adventurous yet grounded, smartly snapping back to straightforward death when needed. By Liminal Shrines’ halfway mark, Gutvoid’s confidence is brimming, as they continuously attack the nether regions with crushing blast-driven heaviness, unexpected prog flair—like Neil Peart’s (Rush) trademark ride pattern (“Umbriel’s Door”)—and devastating breakdowns.

But strangely, Gutvoid’s ambition tails off around “Umbriel’s Door,” and Liminal Shrines finds the quartet slipping back into some familiar habits—most notably, an overreliance on length that drowns the impact of otherwise great ideas. “Lead Me Beyond the Sleeping I,” in particular, feels like a classic case of bloat, taking far too long to evolve out of its mid-tempo Bolt Thrower-esque plods and spacious leads. It’s a shame because there are some genuinely great moments here—the arpeggiated guitar section halfway through, the surprise clean vocal harmonies, and the acoustic ending with tasteful off‑beat drum accents—but each arrives too late and lingers too long, making the twelve-minute runtime feel unjustified for what is ultimately a restrained song compared to Gutvoid’s earlier aspirations. “Chasm of Displaced Souls” fares better thanks to more immediate momentum, inventive drumming, and a compelling atmospheric interlude that recalls “Ruinous Gateways,” yet even here a sense of repetition creeps in. While these tracks aren’t bad by any stretch, they reinforce the group’s tendency to trust duration over concision to create gravity, consequently stretching songs beyond their natural lifespan.

There’s no question Gutvoid has the chops, but Liminal Shrines hovers somewhere between good and very good. I can’t help but feel let down by a final block that doesn’t match the ambition of the first half, especially when their strongest material proves they don’t need to rely on excess to hit hard and clearly know how to write great songs that stick. I’ll be watching for the second half of this series, hoping the closer shows up partially reborn. The good news, though, is that Gutvoid has still given us enough to chew on while we wait for them to unlock their full potential.

Rating: Good
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Profound Lore
Websites: gutvoid.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/gutvoidofficial
Releases Worldwide: March 20th, 2026

Evoken – Mendacium Review

By Steel Druhm

New Jersey’s Evoken is one the big names in the very niche genre of funeral doom. Since 1994 they’ve been churning out lengthy, unhurried odes to despair and tragedy, taking heavy inspiration from the Peaceville Three era while forging a path of their own. Albums like Quietus and Antithesis of Light are regarded as funeral doom triumphs, and you can depend on Evoken to deliver carefully crafted epics full of emotionally harrowing moods. It’s been a long time since 2018s Hypnagogia dropped, and 2025 finally sees these Garden State downers resurface for 7th full-length, Mendacium. And when I saw full-length, I mean FULL, as this beast runs over an hour with songs typically in the 9-10 minute framework. Funeral doom can be a tough sell to many, even when executed adroitly. Will there be an appetite for an hour-plus of what Evoken have prepared for the ears?

Nearly 10-minute opener “Matins” isn’t what I would call a soft intro to the Evoken experience. It’s eerie, ominous funeral noise with heavy, drawn-out doom riffs, cavernous death croaks, and nerve-jangled synths, but as the monster shambles forward, more melodic touches emerge from the miasma. Sad, forlorn piano keys twinkle in that My Dying Bride way, and a vaguely Gothic mist swirls below the heavier assault. Sudden upheavals of blast beats and trem riffs jumpstart the energy, and tempos are toyed with just enough to keep things from becoming a faceless mush of doom plod. The package is what Evoken have done before, and it isn’t showing new textures so much as moving established genre pieces around on the board. The forlorn guitar lines and solos ache with emotion, and a feeling of suffocating hopelessness is maintained throughout. Is it a chore to get through? That will depend on how well you stomach funeral doom, but even for a fan like me, it does feel a bit long by the end. “Lauds” is another 10-minute death march, but a bit more “urgent” in its pacing, with more emphasis on force and less on atmosphere and nuance. The dramatic spoken word bits can be a take-it-or-leave-it element, but the riffs are meaty and heavy, and there’s a sense of danger here instead of just grief. It’s got genuinely gripping moments, and the vaguely liturgical feel of the synths and ghostly choirs is a nifty touch, but Evoken drag segments out past the point of usefulness with resultingly diminishing returns.

For my tastes, “None” is the album highlight. Though typically slow to get locked into gear, once there, you’re greeted with gripping death and black vocals and a rising intensity that feels like it’s on the highway to Hell. There’s real menace here, though restraint and leaden pacing are still the watchwords. The extra weight from the riffs helps keep attention, though Evoken still tests your patience with stretched-out segments of minimal action. Closer “Compline” dives deeper into classic doom and the salad days of My Dying Bride and Anathema with mostly positive results. I especially like the banged upon piano keys, which hint at something disturbing. The big obstacle across Mendacium is the way Evoken build their long-form compositions. They can often feel flat and undynamic, even by funeral doom standards. The tracks with the most routine tempo shifts work best, but even they feel 2-3 minutes too long. This isn’t a new issue for the band, but it seems to have become more pronounced starting on Hypnagogia. There are long segments that could appear on a new age meditation album, where you can sit and zone out to the astral plane. That’s fine, but I don’t want lots of that in my funeral doom.

John Paradiso and Chris Molinari offer a fair amount of heavy doom riffs, and there are plenty of plaintive harmonies that speak of melancholy and despair. They aren’t the most dynamic riff authors out there, but they know how to set a mood and build atmosphere. Paradiso’s vocals are effective, his death roars booming and menacing and his evil blackened cackles sounding suitably demonic. I’m not a fan of the spoken word bits, but that’s a genre-wide issue and a personal preference. Vince Verkay does a lot on the kit when let off his leash by the funerary slogging. He’s one of the bright spots here, and I find my attention drawn to his playing frequently.

Evoken are pros at this style of doom, and Mendacium is solid, competent funeral doom with some writing snags that take it down a few notches in effectiveness. Too many moments evoke spa time, sitting with cucumber slices on my eyes rather than sobbing inconsolably at a loved one’s grave. I need less spa, more funeral. This may be one of the most restrained things to ever come out of New Jersey, and that’s not a selling point for Yours Steely. Still, if the mood is right, this could lull you into an early grave. A muted endorsement.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Profound Lore
Websites: evokenofficial.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/evokenhell | instagram.com/evoken_doom_official
Releases Worldwide: October 17th, 2025

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