Void Return Of The Phantom Review
A few weeks ago, we dropped a line about VOID, Lafayette’s unholy Thrash mongers, and now we’re back making good on our promise like a blood oath scratched into the wall of a crumbling asylum. Their latest 7” slab, “Return of the Phantom”, isn’t just a teaser, it’s an omen. A red-eyed, grave-digging, bone-cracking harbinger of what’s to come from their first full-length for Shadow Kingdom Records. And if this single is the canary in the coal mine, then the mine has already collapsed and caught fire.
The title track kicks in like it’s being channeled through a haunted phonograph on Halloween night. Think King Diamond’s “Them” if it got possessed by Annihilator, then locked in a shed with a bottle of gasoline and no adult supervision. It’s got that kind of energy, epic, malicious, theatrical, and sharp enough to cut glass. Void don’t just flirt with Horror; they french kiss the Reaper and leave lipstick on his scythe.
The confidence here is rabid. It’s not the sound of a band "finding their voice", this is a band that’s howling through a megaphone made from human femurs. It shreds, it thrashes, it commands. And the video - the band went full-tilt VHS Horror meltdown.
But then there’s the B-side… “Necromantical Screams”. It’s not just a track, it’s a ritual. Slower, heavier, darker, it lurks like a reanimated corpse wearing a studded denim vest. This one doesn't punch; it crushes. A slow-mo jawbreaker of a tune that feels like it was raised on Nuclear Assault’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, then fed nothing but rust and razor blades.
The whole 7” is beautifully packaged chaos: two different colored vinyl pressings, gatefold, OBI strip, the works, because even maniacs like presentation.
If you’re not already riding the VOID train, what are you doing? Reading reviews like a civilized person? Wake up and smell the smoke. Go listen. Go feel. Because the “Return of the Phantom” is more than a release, it’s a summoning.