Metal
Aesthetic Death / Ksenza Records · 13 October 2026
The shortest track on the digital edition of “Voidlit” runs eleven minutes fifteen. There are four pieces and fifty-one minutes thirty-five: “Ghost Of Grief” (13:37), “Harbinger Of The End” (11:15), “Oblivion” (11:36) and the title track, which runs 15:07. The digi CD and the double vinyl add a fifth composition, “Voidlit II”, which the digital does not carry. It is the first Umus album and it came out on 13 October, co-released by Ksenza Records and Aesthetic Death.
The trio formed in 2024, and they did it remotely, between three musicians based in different cities; there is not one full name in the credits. V. plays guitars and bass, R. drums and backing vocals, and E. supplies the growls and the clean vocals. V. and R. both come from the post-metal band Crust and from the drone and doom project Sönma. The label states where the frame comes from — Ahab, Evoken, Esoteric and dark ambient — and gives notice that the record is about spiritual decay, isolation and inner collapse.
The record never steps outside that statement. The four digital tracks all fit inside a margin of three minutes fifty-two, from 11:15 to 15:07, and across fifty-one minutes there is not one interlude, not one short piece, not one change of scale. Duration is the one variable the record never uses. The only contrast the credits announce is E.’s clean vocals, and the credits give E. both the growls and the clean singing. And the fifth composition, the one that might open that margin up, only reaches whoever buys the record on a physical format.
Both physical editions came out on that same day: a digi CD and a gatefold double vinyl, in black and in marble.
Rating: 7.4/10
Text by Roger Estivill