Entranced by the obsidian pillar looming above and awakened through compulsive ritualized feats Zürich, Switzerland-based experimental black/doom metal duo DEATH. VOID. TERROR. indirectly embody Luciferian primal light’s gifting of sentience within this transformative third full-length album. A truly immersive conjuration set well outside the proverbial box ‘To The Great Monolith III: Rifts‘ demonstrates its own idiosyncratic metaphysical summoning, a variously warm and/or funereal tone applied to vocally driven pieces which illustrate a rogue population in worship. The experience resultant offers a form of sublimely ritualistic atmospheric psychedelic metal wherein vague natural mysticism guides their chants, dirges and narration in an unknown tongue.

Death. Void. Terror. introduced themselves as an anonymous duo circa 2018 in association with the greater Jünger Tumilon cult while sporting an improvised form of black-atmospheric drone on their earliest releases. They’d more clearly incorporate ambient black metal between their first and second records as the project’s authorship sophisticated, garnering comparisons to Urfaust and even The Ruins of Beverast depending on the release. I’d gone into greater detail last month in review of this album’s precursor cassette EP (‘To the Great Monolith 2.5‘, 2026) and would recommend at least scrubbing through the band’s prior work to clarify the scope of their dramatic evolution. As suggested by that EP’s title their transition wasn’t a complete revision yet today we find their tribe fully transmogrified.

‘To The Great Monolith III: Rifts‘ intends transgression against predictable stylistic development, leaving behind outwardly improvised vibe-guided motioning and now staking Death. Void. Terror.‘s voice within work which is more personal, deliberately writ and additionally unbound from cryptic sub-genre strictures. This brings a new level of expressivity to their creation via dramatic vocal treatments wherein throat singing, effects, percussion, keys and techniques beyond even what they’d introduced on ‘To the Great Monolith 2.5‘ offer a most complete mutant. This change is so emphasized that it appears as resistance to the tides of atmospheric black/death metal they’d incorporated prior in favor of delirious ritualistic performance, striding beats, and hymnal marches unto eclectic extreme psychedelia. Beyond some manner of funeral doom-esque elements incorporated alongside harsher vocals I don’t have an ‘easy’ label for what these folks’ve become though it is uniformly non-standard in experience.

The immersive cinematic detailing afforded most Jünger Tumilon acts, when called for, only seems to have ramped since ~2021 and this continues to yield massive leaps into fresh formae. This was probably most striking in recent memory per Arkhaaik‘s 2025 sophomore LP but obviously appears more gradual if not more surprising in result via Death. Void. Terror., taking an idea that’d fully centered around feats of chance, improvised spiritual release if anything, and morphing them into an entranced unearthly projection. ‘To The Great Monolith III: Rifts‘ should read as no less a leap but one the duo’d telegraphed well enough though I don’t doubt some will be surprised to find a stomping sort of ‘tribal’ dark psychedelic rock affect within many of these ~8-10 minute pieces. This’ll be difficult to describe in evolution per song but “(- — – –) Ids Elrekis Frakhetir” and expansive opener “(– — – — -) Gözdyrey” create a strong impression up front as some of the longer, more varietally summoned pieces on the saunter through.

Though they don’t sound anything like Bölzer here, probably vaguely closer to max experimental level Urfaust per the opener, Death. Void. Terror. similarly ensure each work here is distinct in both voicing and temperament, often deploying dramatic and bizarrely creative vocal ideas as a driver for change. If we bump over to Side B for “( – – –) Flukhetor” we find a particularly good example of this in cinematic context where we wade through a surreal drum circle summoning beneath the shadow of the monolith and escalate into cathedralesque funeral doomed keys lighting the way through slow-stamped monastic disarray. Later on in the piece their escalation includes kinda DSBM-edged howls and even an extended whistled melody to send the piece off into its green and greyed sunset. However you might imagine the actual event there is no doubt the duo are creating with a vision, depicting events using their own non-standard voice and as such operating on a level far removed from anything else of its ilk at the moment.

For my own taste “(— — -) Asgadon Odewäl” is the apex of the total experience, a point of friction between past-and-present wherein Death. Void. Terror. bring the sludgy funereal fanfare of this album’s introductory EP into fresh abysm echoes. Vocal performances are better contained and concerted here, particularly as the song ramps towards its end as the song concludes with its own howling and infectious ‘Soma‘-level scrape. Sure there are busier and far more inventive pieces on ‘To The Great Monolith III: Rifts‘ but this was naturally the peaking high of my own experience with the album after repeated passes. In direct contrast album closer “(– —) Daphnyr” never quite resonated with me as an endpoint but rather a mumbling of less compelling ideas strung together.

Though I’d headed into ‘To The Great Monolith III: Rifts‘ assured that I’d terra firmae enough to claw into as it challenged along the way Death. Void. Terror.‘ve presented a work of brimming scenery and cacophonous corridor nigh impossible to forecast in advance. As such the act of exploration under their guidance was immersive beyond the norm, not only per its expansive layer-heavy production values but by way of the surrealistic ever-blooming concoctions afforded. What initially appeared alien and far-removed from extremity to start ultimately overtook the senses, warranting many repeated listens as a uniquely engrossing article. A high recommendation.

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