Heaven is Gone

Seventh Void




Rating:
4 out of 5 kiwis





In the past few years heavy metal seemed almost to disappear from the music scene. If you've been missing that old metal sound, Seventh Void's debut album Heaven is Gone will satisfy that craving.

Seventh Void is a hard rock, "doom metal" band that formed in 2003. The band is made up of two Type O Negative members -- Kenny Hickey (vocals and guitar) and John Kelly (drums), plus Matt Brown (guitar, production, and engineering) from Supermassiv and Hank Hell (bass) from Inhuman. Six years after the bands' original conception, Heaven was Gone is released.

Initially, after seeing who were members of Seventh Void, I was worried that it would just be Type O Negative part two. I was very pleasantly surprised after listening to the album. Kenny Hickey's higher-register voice is very different from Type O's Peter Steele deep voice. The vocals never go into an intelligible scream or growl but remain between singing and shouting.



The general sound really goes back to high-energy metal basics, as defined by Black Sabbath, with a touch alternative style melodies which are a refreshing change on some tracks. The riffs are powerful, but none are amazingly memorable. It really is bare bones metal without any extra fluff; there are no long-winded solos or extended portions of instrumental music.

The label of "doom metal" is very fitting for Seventh Void. The lyrics are very doom and gloom with themes of drug abuse, suicide and the world's end combined with recurring religious themes. Nearly every song contains some sort of religious allusion. This theme is interesting since "Heaven is Gone" and "The End of All Time" both seem to dispel religious beliefs; proclaiming that there is no Heaven and no savior. It seems to hint that the songwriter(s) were believers, but then experienced something leading to a loss of faith.




The title track, "Heaven is Gone" was released as the first single from the album. Heaven is Gone is a fair representation of the album, although in my opinion, not necessarily the best song on it. Unfortunately few songs on the first half of the album really stand out. They blend into each other and end up sounding very similar. Had the album been ordered differently, it would have helped to break things up and keep the flow of songs interesting.

My favorite songs are the last three on the album: "Drown Inside," "Death of a Junkie," and "Last Walk in the Light". "Drown Inside" features some great guitar work including probably the best solo on the album. Death of a Junkie follows with the album’s theme condemning a wasteful life of excess. The haunting beginning and guitar add a mournful feel to the song. Finally, Last Walk in the Light is almost an upbeat song and contains some fantastic guitar playing!

Overall, Seventh Void’s Heaven is Gone is a good standard metal album, but doesn’t provide anything revolutionary. For anyone who misses that kind of sound I would definitely recommend picking it up.

Track Listing
1. Closing In
2. Heaven is Gone
3. The End of All Time
4. Broken Sky
5. Killing You Sky
6. Descent
7. Shadow On Me
8. Drown Inside
9. Death of a Junkie
10. Last Walk in the Light