{"id":524159,"date":"2026-07-13T17:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T17:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/524159\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T17:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T17:13:13","slug":"emptiness-nowhere-speaks-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/524159\/","title":{"rendered":"Emptiness – Nowhere Speaks Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Emptiness, nothingness, absence, non-being: such evocations of negation abound in extreme metal, often justifiably given the visceral analogy between dense dissonance and existential dysphoria. Among the acts walking this walk, Belgium\u2019s Emptiness proudly stalk, with the blurb for seventh full-length Nowhere Speaks explicitly stating that it is \u201centirely unconcerned with making its listener comfortable.\u201d The group\u2019s trajectory thus far has taken them from uncompromising blackened death into ever more ambient and experimental territory, where they first crossed into the AMG-verse via Jean-Luc Ricard\u2019s 2014 TYMHM post<\/a> on Nothing But the Whole, and returned in 2017 to send shivers down Grymm\u2019s spine<\/a> with Not For Music. The sudden pivot into French-sung, distortion-free Vide was no less disturbing for its quietitude, though it may have ironically alienated fans. Nowhere Speaks thus carries the weight of significant mystery: what form has Emptiness taken this time, and does it bear any connection to their past?<\/p>\n

Nowhere Speaks sees Emptiness heap scorn over those who doubted them\u2014this is all of Emptiness, and there\u2019s nothing random about it. The album begins with this affirmation, picking up the riff that was cut-off midway from Nothing But the Whole\u2019s closer \u201cLowland,\u201d and carrying on (\u201cNothing But The Whole (Part 2)\u201d). It ends with it too, final track \u201cAll For Nothing\u201d lapsing into the malevolent soundscape of Nothing But The Whole\u2019s first, \u201cGo and Hope,\u201d and stopping with similar abruptness\u2014a synecdoche for the wider circularity that connects these two albums over a decade apart. This brings a weird closure to the former record, even as Nowhere Speaks\u2019 ending perpetuates the unsettled and unsettling sempiternality. Emptiness\u2019 self-referential horror doesn\u2019t stop at album construction. In a direct mirror of predecessor Vide, which was recorded by each member in isolation and geographically distant, Nowhere Speaks was recorded live all at once in the studio. This reassembling works as a metaphor for this album\u2019s sound, which reconstructs many of Emptiness\u2019 elements in both familiar and unfamiliar ways.<\/p>\n

\ufeffNowhere Speaks by Emptiness<\/a><\/p>\n

Nowhere Speaks is the opposite of immediate; everything about it creeps. And it creeps inexorably, as certain as death. The dark melodies and restlessly stalking tempos (\u201cNowhere Speaks,\u201d \u201cWords to Wind,\u201d \u201cWhen the Whole Arrives\u201d) are only the half of it. Sometimes the music\u2019s atmosphere incarnates as disso-death moodiness, (\u201cWords to Wind,\u201d \u201cWhen the Whole Arrives\u201d), sometimes as the blurriness of noisy atmo-black (\u201cThe Threat,\u201d \u201cOne Must See All,\u201d \u201cAll For Nothing\u201d), sometimes as warped, static-scattered ambience (\u201cDarkness Commands,\u201d \u201cWords to Wind,\u201d \u201cNext In Line\u201d). Tremolos often feel almost warm (\u201cNowhere Speaks,\u201d \u201cAll For Nothing\u201d) until they aren\u2019t (\u201cWords to Wind\u201d), and the stylistic incongruence between them and the electro-industrial edge that warps whispered growls creates an eerie tone throughout. The highest points are the culmination of these apparent inconsistencies, some new genre Emptiness have been crafting all this time\u2014a pared-back blackened-death, dark ambient, groovy, and dissonant. It builds in the second act of \u201cWords to Wind,\u201d stalks with predatory grace at \u201cWhen the Whole Arrives\u201d\u2018s intro, and spreads insidiously in \u201cNext In Line.\u201d Emptiness pass through extreme metal and cloak elements in atmosphere, yet all this adds rather than subtracts tension and fearfulness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

These nuanced and unusual textures are intriguing, but they sometimes veer towards a m\u00e9lange that\u2019s too understated. Emptiness have absolutely nailed the vibe, and much of Nowhere Speaks does capitalise on the magical combination of pseudo-dissonant guitar, smothering dark ambience, and unusual compositional shapes. I can forgive the myriad interludes\u2014some of which, particularly \u201cDarkness Commands,\u201d are excellent in their own right\u2014which bleed in and out of the main songs. It\u2019s the wavering vagaries in the midpoints and margins that threaten to fade too far into the background. The burying of instruments whilst nothing else drives a progression (\u201cNowhere Speaks,\u201d); muffled voices and noise (\u201cWords to Wind\u201d), an immersion-breaking slide into the major (\u201cNowhere Speaks,\u201d \u201cThe Clash of Forces,\u201d \u201cAll for Nothing\u201d). At least it sounds brilliant\u2014all the layers distinguishable, the reverb a softness rather than an obstruction, the drums, vocals and guitars each having space to spook you.<\/p>\n

Emptiness are evidently believers in the virtue of patience, answering the open question of Nothing But The Whole\u2019s abrupt ending more than a decade after it was posed. Nowhere Speaks is no anomaly; give it time, and it spreads out like a great gulf of nothing. It may have taken many listens, but I\u2019m now so immersed in the void of beautiful nothingness Emptiness have created, that it\u2019s hard to remember I ever really had my doubts.<\/p>\n

Rating: Very Good
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist<\/a>
Websites: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2026<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emptiness, nothingness, absence, non-being: such evocations of negation abound in extreme metal, often justifiably given the visceral analogy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2246,837,170093,842,196882,259485,156,105338,105340,255554,157,111,139,259486,69,9662,762,763,2790],"class_list":["post-524159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-2246","tag-3-5","tag-belgian-metal","tag-black-metal","tag-dark-ambient","tag-emptiness","tag-entertainment","tag-experimental-metal","tag-industrial-metal","tag-jul26","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nowhere-speaks","tag-nz","tag-post-metal","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-season-of-mist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}