Gutvoid - Breathing Obelisk

Gutvoid is a death metal band from Toronto, Canadawho formed in 2019. Their latest release, “Breathing Obelisk” is their second EP; they have also released a full-length and a split.

Gutvoid and “Breathing Obelisk” are filth soaked in horror, burned in the cold vacuum of space and then resurrected as some sort of entity from which the only fate is death, or maybe something worse.

The music matches the album’s artwork, that is for certain. The melodies, if you want to call them that, are cold and distant. The tone of the guitars are deep and expansive but offer the pressure of near unbearable weight. The band is at their best when the rhythm is tight but laced with ambient, spacey textures that make the songs scream out in unbridled terror.

It takes a special band to harness the underground appeal of death metal while stepping it’s box. Gutvoid is that band and across the 30 minute, 4 song runtime, they grasp the void with outstretched claws. Can something be as scary as it is brutal? Can something offer nervous energy but the overwhelming desire to discover the unknown? “Breathing Obelisk” sure does.

Even at their most explorative, they are first and foremost a death metal band—and the band never forgets it, nor do the songs. The opening song, “Swamp Consumed,” starts out with these clean tones, dripping down over the sweltering riffs like blood splattering onto the floor from the end of a knife.  

Crushing rhythms propel the journey into the unknown, set to the backdrop of bleak catastrophe. I love how the music is as powerful as any other death metal I’ve heard yet it’s atmospheric match that intensity, in its own way. The song contains moments where the metal aspects are front and center, either leading into or returning from, a more detached batch of notes.  

Albums such as this work, at least to me, when they are slower or mid-paced. However, the band proves just how wrong I am because when they speed up tempo, such as with “For We Are Many,” they lose none of their gnawing trepidation.

The solo that hits just before the halfway point perfectly grasps the ideas presented in the song while helping to transition the song to a mid-paced groove at the halfway point. The last minute or so proves to be the most sterling , what with their spacey atmosphere absorbing the riffs as they all move as one. 

But even the darkness craves a big hook, which is the case with “When The Living Dome Opens,” and it's insanely groovy opening. The vocal cadence matches it and the whole thing is very memorable. 

The final half is huge—a rip roaring solo propels itself through the song as the drums break it down. The ending riffs are lumbering, finishing the song out in an explosive fashion…but wait there is more! A clean interlude of sorts arrives after to lead the song into, and out of, a psychotic break.

“Shodar” finishes the album, building up its presence before the break at the .55 mark where the notes groove out for a bit before heading into dissonant waters.

The chorus here is surprisingly catchy, as the guitar solo later on. Afterwards the song builds itself back up again to another chorus.

Gutvoid's “Breathing Obelisk” is a disturbing but fascinating journey into the heart of oblivion that captures the balance between heavy music and imaginative song writing.