Friday Full-Length: Forming the Void, Skyward
Released by the band in 2015, Forming the Void‘s debut full-length, Skyward (review here), was warmly greeted on its arrival. It was kind of the dawn of the Bandcamp era, such as it is, and the Lafayette, Louisiana-based four-piece of guitarist/vocalist James Marshall, guitarist Shadi Omar Al Khansa, bassist Luke Baker and drummer Jordan Boyd showed up with just the right kind of rolling grooves to start mouths wording.
There are only five songs — “Skyward” (6:12), “Three Eyed Gazelle” (7:39), “Saber” (7:58), “Return Again” (6:18) and “Sleepwalker” (6:32) — and the album takes place over a readily-digested 34 minutes, beginning with the atmospheric intro provided by the first two minutes of “Skyward” before its central riff sweeps into the record’s first verse. I’ll admit it’s been a while since I last visited, but the title-track is an insistent nod there and shifts at 2:40 into a section of chug to remind that Forming the Void‘s prog-metal elements were part of what helped them stand out from the cadre of other outfits taking shape at the time, as well as the atmospheric lead put over that chug.
Even with “Skyward” dropping the first hints of the deeper-diving into Middle Eastern scales and melodies that would flourish through the band’s three subsequent LPs to-date, 2017’s Relic (review here), 2018’s Rift (review here) and 2020’s Reverie (review here), Ripple Music being the perfect label to issue the latter not the least for Forming the Void‘s emergent ‘r’ theme in record titles. In the car, “Skyward” is raw and some of the ambience is given up to the bare crunch of the riff, but on headphones the deeper reaches come through clearer. ‘Listen without distraction,’ the saying goes.
And no question, Skyward is a case-in-point for creative evolution. Forming the Void‘s sound has grown bigger, more progressive, and boldly heavier throughout their time, and as the foundation of their development as a group — Thomas Colley would replace Jordan Boyd on drums — in the vocals of Marshall, in the guitar of Al Khansa, and in the sheer aural largesse amassed in records two, three and four, it feels a little bit like the spark before the Big Bang. In part just for the relative dryness of the vocals. 
And if they had never done anything else, it would still be a killer record, but I don’t think I’m giving away state secrets when I say they’d soon enough blow themselves out of the water in terms of complexity, clarity of vision and ongoing refinement.
So again, evolution. Things starting as one thing and becoming something else over time. A single cell as life form. Skyward is nowhere near that basic, and the brooding, lurching, churning groove of “Three-Eyed Gazelle” (video here) expands the ambience of the title-track with an early roller verse — a Forming the Void specialty, stylistically-speaking — and soon breaks to an ambient section anchored by Baker‘s bass and again peppered with leads before surging back to pay off the tension built. They nod back into the verse, hints of doom in the solo as they approach the seven-minute mark, and course through with a stateliness that the more uptempo rock almost-boogie of the intro to “Saber” intentionally contradicts.
Harmonies in the verse — is it Marshall and Al Khansa, or maybe Marshall in layers? — mark “Saber” as a highlight, along with the ’90s-style groove that takes hold, not quite grunge, but pre-turn of the century at heart. “Saber” also doubles as a construction project for the big ol’ wall of noise and crash at its finish, the apex riff and shouted vocals overtop met by a rising movement on guitar that could be higher in the mix for extra adrenaline push. Residual noise finishes and “Return Again” answers by pairing soothing quiet sections with contrasting comedowns — heavy, quiet, heavy, quiet, heavy, if you’re curious — bordering on aggressive in its heavier parts, and is psychedelic in its mellower stretches, if still rhythmically tense.
“Sleepwalker” caps and is effective in finding a middle ground. More melodically-centered in its verse than, say, “Three Eyed Gazelle,” the gradual build and harder kick-in at 3:05 are confidently executed in a way that doesn’t want to catch the listener off guard so much as bring them along. Even when they’re about to get loud, you can almost hear them rearing back to do so, as if just checking to make sure everybody is on board. Please keep your hands and feet and phones and whatevers in the car at all times.
By the time it’s finished, “Sleepwalker” has portrayed the multi-tiered potential of the band and given hints at how they might grow. The fact that listeners now know the answers to the questions inherently raised by that makes the culmination of Skyward no less satisfying, especially since so much of Forming the Void‘s evolution as a group happened on tour.
As you can see above, three years is the longest break the band — who are still active and booked to appear at Ripplefest Texas this month — have had between albums, and one assumes that the plague upheaval surrounding the time of Reverie‘s release is at least partially to blame for that. I don’t know anybody’s life or work situation or anything like that, but if shit got complicated during covid for Forming the Void, they’d hardly be the only ones for whom that’s the case.
And for what it’s worth — plenty — they’ve dropped hints of new stuff coming soon, so maybe next year we’ll get there. Until then (or not), any excuse to revisit is welcome, both to remember this initial display of their songwriting and to appreciate it and the forward-thinking style they’ve made their own.
As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.
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I have too much going on to talk about it. This week was insane. We got a puppy. Her name is Tilly. Here’s the picture. The Patient Mrs. started a new semester. The Pecan starts kindergarten on Tuesday. I was watching three kids on Wednesday (5, 7, 10) and it was nuts. I spent so much time writing on my phone, completely overwhelmed, chasing. Trying to squeeze in as much as I could. That would be what I signed up for, it seems.
I talked about it a little bit earlier this week — and yes, that link is there because I don’t expect you to have read it or remember — but we drove out to Pennsylvania to get the dog, way out. The place was far enough that it made sense somehow to stop through Hersheypark on our way to the 2PM meeting with the breeder, who was a Mennonite farmer with an expansive operation — fields, cattle, chickens, etc. — and thankfully not a puppy mill. The place was clean and obviously not just because someone was showing up that day, and the litter was kept together and she got 10 full weeks with her bothers and sisters and seems to have benefited from that. Eight, which is the standard, is not enough. Also, she’s clearly been handled, including by kids, who we met, can fetch, sometimes comes when she’s called, and she responds well to positive reinforcement, so that’s been a plus.
The pressure was on me. It wasn’t spoken so much, but The Patient Mrs. very clearly took the ‘I got the last dog and you made us get rid of it so this is your show, champ’ position, and fairly so. I’m glad Omi likes living at my mother’s house. I hope our experience with this puppy continues on the track of this past week.
We took the one from the selection of five who hung back and who looked confused in the videos I was sent. So far she’s been very good. She has peed in the house once. I caught her in time on a pee this morning and on a poop the other evening, whenever it was, so I’m not calling her housebroken at all — she was born in June 12; we have a ways to go on all fronts, including teaching her the difference between dog toys and just about everything else when it comes to chewing — but we’re off to an encouraging start. I like carrying her in the crook of my arm and reveling in the dopamine drip.
But it’s time now to feed The Pecan her breakfast, so hey, have a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, see you at the kindergarten ice cream social at 1PM! Don’t be late or you won’t get into college!
FRM.
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Tags: Forming the Void, Forming the Void Skyward, Lafayette, Louisiana, Skyward
