Melbourne heavy provocateurs Void of Vision have announced the September 20th launch of their next full length effort via UNFD. Turning the page from the stylishly savagery of their Chronicles-era which fruited a trifecta of EPs culminating in the 2023 title LP, What I'll Leave Behind takes on a more personal significance for the band.
Back in January of 2022, vocalist and band architect Jack Bergin suffered a significant stroke. MRI and CT scans would reveal Bergin endured an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) - a tangle of blood vessels in his brain. Spending 10 days in the hospital, Bergin was discharged and medicated, urged by doctors to rest and steer clear of activiities that would raise his blood pressure.
Instead, Bergin went back to work, shooting the music video for "DOMINATRIX," which would launch the 2023 CHRONICLES II: HEAVEN EP release. Pressing forward to complete subsequent tours of Europe and North America, along with the completion of the EP trilogy with CHRONICLES III: UNDERWORLD, Bergin immersed himself in his craft, though privately finding his bandwidth dwindling.
On April 5th, 2023, Bergin's AVM ruptured. Bergin would need to have surgery and while the advice of doctors initially was to slow down, Bergin's harrowing health ordeal would now force him to stop all together.
Spending weeks in recovery, Bergin was in a situation where he could no longer evade his eventual confrontation with his own mortality. During those days confined to the white walls of a hospital room, Bergin endured his own existential reckoning. He explains, "Trying to make music for a living is like a bloodsport, but one where even moments of triumph can feel hollow," Bergin confides. "At times, I felt totally over it, fed up with giving literally everything for people to just not give a shit, at others I'd be mad at myself for indulging in a pity party. My feelings were a constant juxtaposition."
Out of his extended period of self-inventory and introspection, Bergin poured his new found sense of perspective into the ten-track presentation that is What I'll Leave Behind. Bergin explains of the project, "The album is a reflection, on and of everything; coming to terms with life and mortality, finding inner peace from within the impact crater."
Augmenting the previously released "Angel of Darkness" and "Empty", the latest in "Gamma Knife" frames an important summation of the album's headspace and showcases a highly personal, poignant point of view that can only come from Bergin.
"'Gamma Knife' is about my near death experience and the desire for clarity in the aftermath," shares Bergin. "To truly discover if everything I went through in the healing process would change me and everything around me for the better. I felt like the idea of going through radiosurgery figuratively felt like it was not only destroying the malformation in my brain but also a negative version of myself I needed to leave in the past."
What I'll Leave Behind drops September 20th via UNFD. Pre-order the album - HERE
WHAT I'LL LEAVE BEHIND TRACKLIST
"Oblivion"
"Blood For Blood"
"Supernova"
"Neurotic"
"Gamma Knife"
"Beautiful Things"
"Empty"
"Midnight Sweat"
"Decades"
"Angel of Darkness"
