Void Forbidden Morals Review
Void
Forbidden Morals
Shadow Kingdom Records
2025
As promised, Louisiana’s Thrash titans, Void, are back from the crypt to swing the axe once more, and this time they’re bringing a bigger, sharper blade. Their sophomore abomination “Forbidden Morals” is set to crawl out of the shadows via Shadow Kingdom Records in just a few short weeks, and it feels less like an album release and more like a summoning. I already tangled with their earlier nightmares, “Horrors of Reality” and the “Return of the Phantom” 7”, and at this point, Void feels less like a band and more like an infestation I’ve willingly let inside my skull. Once they’re in, you don’t shut the door, you open it wider and let the plague spread.
If you’ve ever bled for their past releases, you’ll find the same venom flowing here, only darker, thicker and more poisonous. Horror doesn’t just lace the riffs, it stalks them. This album reeks of grave dirt and phantom breath, and while the band still brandishes their old-school Thrash pedigree, there’s more atmosphere here, haunted string sections that creep like cold fingers across your skin. On “Apparition,” Void slows the tempo down, not for mercy, but to let the shadows stretch longer; to let you hear the silence between the screams. It’s no ballad, it’s a death march in slow motion.
Then comes “By the Silver Light,” which dares to flirt with the dreaded word ballad, but not in the candle-waving way. No, this is the kind of ballad you play as the coffin lid slams shut. Think Testament’s “The Ballad,” but dragged through a swamp of wraiths. The rise, the collapse, the suffocating in-between, all carried by riffs that breathe like a beast and vocals that sound like they’re being torn from a throat mid-exorcism. It might be the album’s crown jewel, a rare moment where horror and beauty entwine into something grotesquely radiant.
The specter of “Return of the Phantom” reappears, reanimated, stitched back together, stronger and uglier than before. It’s not just a reprise, it’s a resurrection, dripping with new life (or un-life). And then there’s the towering monolith, “Beneath…Lives the Impaler”, ten and a half minutes of ferocious Thrash, riffs flying like chainsaws, leads scorching flesh from bone. It’s ambitious, bloated with menace, and while some might say it overstays its welcome, I say it overstays like a demon you can’t banish, it just keeps grinning in the dark until you break.
With “Forbidden Morals”, Void have carved out their space as one of Thrash’s nastiest underground entities this year. They channel the wild-eyed precision of Toxik and the razor-wire frenzy of Annihilator but never sound like cheap imitations of their idols, they sound like the monsters lurking behind those idols, whispering in their ears.
If there’s any justice in this rotten scene, Metal Blade should sign Void, strap them to a tour like a rabid beast, and let them spill this chaos on stages worldwide. This isn’t just Thrash, it’s Thrash with a corpse grin, Thrash with black candles burning, Thrash that claws its way out of the grave and brings you with it.