Megalith Levitation - Void Psalms

MEGALITH LEVITATION - Void Psalms (AESTHETIC DEATH - CD 2021)

A few months ago I had a chance to challenge myself with the split CD from Megalith Levitation and Dekonstructor. Now I have an opportunity to listen to another album from the Russian doom monsters Megalith Levitation, which is titled "Void Psalms". Well, after a few spins of this CD I have to admit that this was quite an intriguing and mystical journey for me and this album provided experiences, that I get from metal bands rather seldom. It's all for the fact that "Void Psalms" delivers ultimately hypnotizing and almost painfully uniform doom metal. Clearly Megalith Levitation doesn't even try to make the listener's life any easier nor do they walk outside of the circle, in which they comfortably placed their musical style. It is all just drone / doom metal.

From the very first riff, the band sets the atmosphere for incredibly psychedelic, dark, disturbing and trance-like. Riffs are slowly crawling, drilling with an almost torturing pace straight into the mind of the listener, giving him such a headache that it becomes a sadistic pleasure to experience it. It is just very rare when I hear such incredibly heavy, pounding sound and music, which would really have such a dark and disturbing effect. And it's not only because of their riffs - which even within its narrow style have enough textures to keep me interested. Vocals also do incredible work. They're even hard to describe, but I assume you could say that they're like ritualistic (mostly male) chanting, which perfectly fits that slow, monotonous riffage and emphasize the psychedelic, murky mood. "Void Psalms" is comprised of four very, very long anthems... and I challenge you to give them an attentive listen.

Yeah, Megalith Levitation is not a band for everyone. I believe that there's a very narrow circle of listeners of such music. Me too. I am far from being a great enthusiast, but I can certainly appreciate the work this Russian band did here. It's a really intriguing and certainly unique piece of music. I could hardly survive listening to such an album more than once every time I put it on my stereo... But I keep coming back to it, wanting to explore it further and further.

Verdict: 70/100