Review & Track Premiere: Forming the Void, Reverie
[Click play above to stream the premiere of ‘Ancient Satellite’ from Forming the Void’s Reverie. Album is out May 22 on Ripple Music.]
While Lafayette, Louisiana, four-piece Forming the Void have shown increasing progressive tendencies to this point in their relatively-prolific tenure, it’s not a stretch to think that with their fourth album, Reverie, they reach something of a put-up-or-shut-up moment. Over the last half-decade, they’ve served in the role of upstarts in an emergent sphere of progressive heavy rock, with their three also-single-word-title full-lengths — 2016’s Skyward (review here), 2017’s Relic (review here) and 2018’s Rift (review here) — successively bringing more complex use of melody and structure, increased tonal presence, and a deceptive rhythmic patience that, when the band decides to roll, makes that groove utterly consuming. They toured a fair share to support Rift and signed to Ripple Music ahead of Reverie, with guitarist/vocalist James Marshall, guitarist Shadi Omar Al-Khansa and drummer Thomas Colley (who came aboard for Rift) welcoming in the meantime new bassist Thorn Letulle to the fold.
Low end is not a minor consideration in Forming the Void‘s sound, so the shift feels all the more noteworthy, but as the now-fully-revamped rhythm section settles in behind Al-Khansa and Marshall‘s guitars, Forming the Void meet that significant moment for the band head on. Removed from the quick succession of their first three records — each of which felt like a step en route to the next — it was time for them to make a declaration of who they are in terms of aesthetic and the substance of their craft, and to showcase the lessons they’ve learned not only on tour and through restructuring the lineup, but as songwriters with an increasing amount of experience in the studio. Reverie, then, is the put-up in put-up-or-shut-up, and if it indeed is to be that declaration, they could hardly have titled it more appropriately than to make it a wake-up call. Comprised of seven songs running an ultra-manageable 36 minutes, it is a work of striking dimensionality and purpose that pays off the band’s potential while also seeing them set up avenues for future growth in terms of melody and arrangement.
Most crucially, their growth has not come at the expense of their songwriting. Just the opposite. Songs like album-opener “Sage,” “Trace the Omen,” the oud-inclusive “Manifest,” the faster push of “Electric Hive” and the largesse-shove of the penultimate “Ancient Satellite” — with its uptick the melody in the chorus and corresponding shimmer in the guitar — are the most resonant the band has conjured to-date, taking the lessons of a song like “On We Sail” from Rift and expanding the form to suit multiple moods and tempos throughout Reverie. All seven tracks hover on either side of the five-minute mark, and though none of the final three — “Electric Hive,” “Ancient Satellite” and closer “The Ending Cometh” — actually pass five minutes long, Forming the Void never sound rushed. “The Ending Cometh” is perhaps the most patient of the inclusions on Reverie, with Al-Khansa‘s lead stretching over a drawl of a rhythm that feels almost like it’s running in slow motion in all the right ways.
Among the strengths the songs ultimately reinforce is to prove once more what a massive difference the right drummer can mean to a band. Not the most technical drummer. Not just a boogie or a swing drummer. But the right drummer in the right songs. What Colley brings to Reverie, from kicking off “Sage” to providing the ground beneath the floating midsection of “Trace the Omen” to punctuating the utterly massive, righteous stomp of “Ancient Satellite” and holding that last momentum over to the finale, is not to be understated. His work is not by any means the only point of evolution on the part of the band — Marshall‘s confidence as a frontman has lead to an increased melodic reach and his stepping away from the direct rhythm of the riffs in his lyrical patterning, and Al-Khansa‘s lead work has yet to seem so fluid either in tone or soulful expression, while Letulle leaves no shortage of impression in the resounding thickness of the material — but it is a particular thrill to behold. He does not overplay, or underplay. Quite simply, he nails it, and Forming the Void as a whole is stronger for that.
From the depth of the lowest bass frequency to each pop of the snare and the winding ringout of guitar in the mellow beginning of second cut “Onward Through the Haze,” Forming the Void show themselves to be masters of their approach, and whether it’s the volume trades between verses and choruses, or the atmospheric reach of “Manifest” as the centerpiece, their control does not waver. At the same time, it’s worth highlighting once again that while Reverie is this point of arrival for Forming the Void in terms of their sound — it is the landmark toward which they’ve been building all along — its impact is so powerful because of the songwriting at work across its span. Their songs are not “part-showcases” — they’re songs. And for all the progressive nuances on display throughout and for all the intent that comes through so clearly in establishing a sense of mood and ambience, the fact that it’s songs doing that work still gives Reverie an unpretentious feel.
Forming the Void have grown as a unit on every level — in purpose, craft and performance — and Reverie stands as testament to their accomplishment to this point. It simply puts them in a different class of band. They’re not the upstarts anymore, and they’re not quite “veterans” yet — this Spring would’ve been their first touring in Europe, but of course those plans were scuttled like everyone’s plans for everything in Spring 2020 — but the work they’re doing right now is essential to the forward progression not only of themselves, but to American heavy rock as a whole. I mean it. There have been many who’ve loudly sung Forming the Void‘s praises over the last five years or so, and Reverie demonstrates just how right they were to do so. One of the year’s best albums, no question, and a rare moment of creative realization captured and preserved.
Forming the Void, Reverie (2020)
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Tags: Forming the Void, Forming the Void Reverie, Lafayette, Louisiana, Reverie, Ripple Music
