Release Date May 25th, 2026
Format Digital/CD
Genre Progressive Blackened Death/Thrash Metal
Origin USA
Voidmaker is a United States extreme metal project built by multi instrumentalist Joe McAnaney and vocalist Tom McRann. "A Cold, Unyielding Universe", issued through Witches Brew, marks their debut and places its entire framework inside science fiction, cosmic dread and humanity's passage beyond its present biological limits. The album follows a deep space journey through expansion, survival, terraforming, digital creation and contact with the unknown, using titles such as "The Post Human Emergence", "Project Infinity", "Terminus" and "Of Digital Creation" as chapters within that larger arc. McAnaney performs guitars, bass and drums, shaping the music through rapid thrash riffing, death metal aggression, blackened atmosphere, abrupt rhythmic turns and progressive song construction.
McRann supplies rasped shrieks and lower death metal vocals, adding urgency to the futuristic setting. Mixing and mastering were handled by Rob Kukla at Obsidian Recording Studios. The cover art, created by Adam Burke of Nightjar Illustration, translates the album's cosmic scale into a bleak visual frame. With ten songs running from "Starfall" to "Wormhole/Lightchaser", the debut places Voidmaker near the cosmic death metal of Mithras and Nocturnus, the blackened science fiction approach of Imperialist and the angular thrash language associated with Coroner.
"A Cold, Unyielding Universe" is fast, severe and packed with detail. The guitar work refuses simple verse chorus routines, moving through clustered riffs, sudden meter changes, tremolo runs, palm muted thrash patterns and melodic leads that break open the colder sections. The drumming is relentless, with blast beats, double bass passages and
rapid accents giving the songs a near constant forward motion. Bass is used as part of the attack, following the riff architecture closely and adding depth beneath the guitars. McRann's vocals stay raw and urgent, alternating between black metal rasping and deeper death metal phrasing without turning the album into a contest of extremes.
The production separates the layers enough for the rhythmic changes to register, while preserving the rough edges needed for this style. The guitars have definition, the drums strike with precision, and the vocals sit above the mix without swallowing the detail underneath. Longer songs retain internal logic through recurring rhythmic cells and melodic phrases, so the progressive writing rarely becomes a pile of unrelated sections. The lead guitar work also adds colour to the cosmic setting, shifting between frantic runs, colder melodies and space bound lines without reducing the songs to solo platforms.
The main issue is excess. Several songs pile riff after riff into long sequences, and a few transitions function more as junctions than as necessary turns. Soloing appears often, sometimes adding lift, sometimes stretching a section beyond its peak. The cosmic concept is present across the album, though the music communicates motion and threat more effectively than wonder or isolation. That imbalance does not weaken the whole release, though it limits the emotional range. Most of the album remains locked in high speed attack, so the slower passages become important whenever they arrive. More contrast in pacing would have made the final third more effective. Voidmaker's debut has discipline, ambition and real craft.
"A Cold, Unyielding Universe" is an accomplished first release from a two person project with an intricate style and a coherent vision. It is aggressive enough for death and thrash listeners, intricate enough for progressive metal listeners, and blackened enough to preserve a cold outer space atmosphere. Its detail becomes more apparent across multiple listens, especially in the rhythmic turns, linked guitar phrases and structural callbacks buried inside the speed. The overall result remains precise, intense and highly replayable, with enough substance behind the concept to make Voidmaker more than a one album curiosity.
|8.3
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