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’s Emptiness proudly stalk, with the blurb for seventh full-length Nowhere Speaks explicitly stating that it is “entirely unconcerned with making its listener comfortable.” The group’s 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’s 2014 TYMHM post on Nothing But the Whole, and returned in 2017 to send shivers down Grymm’s spine 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?
Nowhere Speaks sees Emptiness heap scorn over those who doubted them—this is all of Emptiness, and there’s nothing random about it. The album begins with this affirmation, picking up the riff that was cut-off midway from Nothing But the Whole’s closer “Lowland,” and carrying on (“Nothing But The Whole (Part 2)”). It ends with it too, final track “All For Nothing” lapsing into the malevolent soundscape of Nothing But The Whole’s first, “Go and Hope,” and stopping with similar abruptness—a 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’ ending perpetuates the unsettled and unsettling sempiternality. Emptiness’ self-referential horror doesn’t 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’s sound, which reconstructs many of Emptiness’ elements in both familiar and unfamiliar ways.
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 (“Nowhere Speaks,” “Words to Wind,” “When the Whole Arrives”1) are only the half of it. Sometimes the music’s atmosphere incarnates as disso-death moodiness, (“Words to Wind,” “When the Whole Arrives”), sometimes as the blurriness of noisy atmo-black (“The Threat,” “One Must See All,” “All For Nothing”), sometimes as warped, static-scattered ambience (“Darkness Commands,” “Words to Wind,” “Next In Line”). Tremolos often feel almost warm (“Nowhere Speaks,” “All For Nothing”) until they aren’t (“Words to Wind”), 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—a pared-back blackened-death, dark ambient, groovy, and dissonant. It builds in the second act of “Words to Wind,” stalks with predatory grace at “When the Whole Arrives”‘s intro, and spreads insidiously in “Next In Line.” Emptiness pass through extreme metal and cloak elements in atmosphere, yet all this adds rather than subtracts tension and fearfulness.
These nuanced and unusual textures are intriguing, but they sometimes veer towards a mélange that’s 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—some of which, particularly “Darkness Commands,” are excellent in their own right—which bleed in and out of the main songs. It’s 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 (“Nowhere Speaks,”); muffled voices and noise (“Words to Wind”), an immersion-breaking slide into the major (“Nowhere Speaks,” “The Clash of Forces,” “All for Nothing”). At least it sounds brilliant—all the layers distinguishable, the reverb a softness rather than an obstruction, the drums, vocals and guitars each having space to spook you.
Emptiness are evidently believers in the virtue of patience, answering the open question of Nothing But The Whole’s 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.2 It may have taken many listens, but I’m now so immersed in the void of beautiful nothingness Emptiness have created, that it’s hard to remember I ever really had my doubts.
Rating: Very Good
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Season of Mist
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 17th, 2026
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