Synopsis:

It does not take a genius to figure out the style that Belgium’s one man (two man I guess if you count a session drummer) project play when you look at the moniker, eleven minute songs and song titles -yup it's droning ambient basement black metal time.

Review:

The brainchild of one “S”, Trancelike Void want to be Xasthur and Leviathan sooooo bad, but the problem is they (he) ends up like Fear of Eternity or Striborg; dull, lifeless two note, grainy droning riffs and robotic shrieks broken up by dreamy, trying so hard to be ambient and atmospheric interludes, resulting in 41 minutes of sleeplike boredom.

With interludes titled “Descent”, “Daydream”, “Nightmare” and “Escape” and tracks called “Everything Fails” and “Total Desolation”, you’d think Destroying Something Beautiful would be a stark, sonic trip into self loathing, but instead the album is a journey into total lethargy and uninspired, droning lo-fi and tiring black metal that lacks any of the emotion, dread and paranoia that Trancelike Void’s peers imbue.

It’s not that I don’t like this genre, it’s actually one of the forms of black metal I enjoy, but Trancelike Void just don’t imbue anything that the genre is about. Only somber closing epilogue “Escape” comes remotely close to pulling any sort of mood or emotional response from me, and it's slightly overseen by emotion-happiness, as the CD comes to a close.