BONGRIPPER
Empty
The Great Barrier Records
If ever there was an album that could peel the paint off your walls while simultaneously making you question your existence, BONGRIPPER's Empty is it. The Chicago quartet, long celebrated (or feared) for their monolithic, instrumental sludge, have outdone themselves with this latest offering-a record so crushing, it feels less like music and more like the soundtrack to the end of the universe.
Empty isn't just an album title; it's a statement of intent. From the opening moments, BONGRIPPER plunges you into a void of despair and suffocating nihilism. Their sound has always been a slow, grinding descent into oblivion, but here they've stripped away any remnants of hope or light, leaving behind only the cold, unfeeling emptiness that lurks at the edge of the cosmos.
The album's two colossal tracks, "Nothing" and "Empty" stretch out over nearly 40 minutes, each one an unrelenting barrage of distorted riffs and seismic basslines that seem designed to flatten anything in their path. There's no respite, no flicker of light to guide you out of the darkness-just an ever-deepening abyss that pulls you in, note by agonizing note. This is doom metal at its most elemental, its most unforgiving, and BONGRIPPER wields it like a weapon.
But within this bleakness, there's a perverse beauty-a kind of nihilistic grandeur that only a band like BONGRIPPER could conjure. They've perfected the art of creating music that's as mesmerizing as it is devastating, drawing you in with repetition that becomes hypnotic, even comforting, until you realize too late that you're caught in a gravitational pull you can't escape.
Empty is a natural evolution for BONGRIPPER, a band that has always been more concerned with creating an atmosphere than crafting catchy hooks. Their earlier work - especially Satan Worshipping Doom - hinted at this level of devastation, but Empty strips away any frills, leaving nothing but the raw, crushing weight of existence. It's a brave move, one that will alienate the uninitiated but solidify BONGRIPPER's place as the high priests of sonic annihilation within the doom metal scene.
In a world full of noise, Empty is the sound of silence-an all-consuming, crushing silence that lingers long after the last note has faded. It's not an album for the faint of heart, but for those willing to stare into the void, it offers an experience like no other. BONGRIPPER has distilled the essence of doom into something pure, something terrifying, and something unforgettable. Listen at your own peril.
5.0 Out Of 5.0
