Album Review: Psychotic Waltz - The God-Shaped Void
Reviewed by Jon Wigg
Psychotic Waltz return after the best part of 25 years away with the original line-up from the early ‘90s with ‘The God-Shaped Void’. Prog metal should always sound this good. The production is excellent although some of the mix choices, especially involving the flute sections is strange, overall sonically this ticks all the boxes. All of the performances on this album are excellent and you can tell that a lot of time and work has gone into each part, befitting an album that took 10 years to make.
‘The God-Shaped Void’ certainly doesn’t leave any voids in melody and atmosphere. If I were to put this into a genre it would be doom prog. There is a trail of melancholy that permeates throughout both lighter and heavier sections and brings a sense of consistency throughout. This album does lack some of the heaviness and invention of their previous efforts, but there are enough progressive moments to keep old fans happy and enough catchy riffs to pull new ones in. It sticks predominantly to mid-paced gloom in terms of pacing although there are some slower and acoustic sections that break this up nicely.
The excellent opener ‘Devils And Angels’ opens with a haunting flute solo before dropping into a rising mid-paced heavy riff, topped with chantable chorus. There is some amazing solo work particularly on the slower ‘In The Silence’ and the more modern-sounding ‘While The Spiders Spin’. ‘Pull The String’ again has more modern metal elements and ups the tempo to a degree before the atmosphere is ramped up again in the fantastic ‘Demystified’ which again utilizes the flute to great effect.
The God-Shaped Void for me is not an album I could chose one song for a playlist. It is an album, like many in the prog metal genre, that almost demands to be listened to in its entirety. In these modern times, this isn’t always conducive to gaining new fans, which is a shame, as those to make the time to listen to this will be handsomely rewarded.
My only criticism would be that the mid-paced gloom can briefly get on the repetitive side. On their earlier albums, the more inventive prog sections were more prevalent and these broke this up, but there are enough such sections to pull the listener back in. Also – more flute please!!
