Style: Progressive metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Devin Townsend, Haken, Between the Buried and Me
Country: Canada
Release date: 9 April 2026

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In Mary Doria Russell’s excellent 1996 novel The Sparrow, a Jesuit-led mission ventures to a nearby star to make first contact after a signal is captured by the SETI Institute. The signal, once decoded, turns out to be beautiful alien music¹. Suffice to say, the expedition goes badly². We know that our own radio signals are being broadcast into the cosmos—that with an appropriate amount of time, the broadcasts of everyone from Orson Welles to Rush Limbaugh could theoretically reach other lifeforms out in the blackness of space and alert them to our presence. But radio signals also spread out as they travel through space, requiring increasingly powerful and finely attuned receivers to be detected. Past a certain point, our sonic signature diffuses into a barely detectable whisper, and the same applies for any lifeforms out there who might be broadcasting back towards us. 

Transmitting to us from that unfathomable black void (Montreal) come Voidchaser with their sophomore LP Interstellar I, the first part in a continuing story about Terra Corp, a shady space company and the unwitting new recruits who begin to realise something’s up with their intergalactic corporate overlords. Blending influences from Devin Townsend, Haken, and even some Between the Buried and Me, Voidchaser are a very modern progressive metal amalgam, with bolide drumwork, gravitational riffing, and a wall-of-sound production style like the cosmic microwave background. But there’s also an unexpected heavy metal sensibility to some of the hooks and chants that light up the record like supernovae. 

Those heavy metal sensibilities are well demonstrated on the first two proper tracks (after scene-setting, spoken word intro “The Grand Design”), “Welcome to Terra Corp” and “Initiation Day”, both of which have choruses that wormhole their way into your head with their AOR chant sensibility and bombastic lead licks, as well as on the outro chant of “Ivory Tower”. Grooving djent and Tommy Giles-esque harsh vocals occupy the rare voids between the catchy passages. And those all important prog touches are plentiful: solar flares of campy organ work, evolving compositions orbiting various time signatures, and solos that voyage through the lacunae. 

However, it’s worth noting that all of the above sounds like it’s being broadcast from the other end of a wormhole. To a degree, this is intentional; Voidchaser are clearly going for a Devin Townsend-style wall-of-sound. But anyone who’s listened to Physicist knows that’s a hard style to pull off, and Interstellar I suffers from similar problems to Devy’s most disfavoured disc. The low end is so prioritised as to make everything else nigh inaudible—“Hyperconverter” being the worst offender in this regard—while the high end is compacted into a sibilant hiss, and the whole mess is brickwalled. A nebula of indistinguishable stuff is lost: melodies become impressionistic constellations, riffs fall in and out of radar detection. Like the universe itself, Interstellar I suffers from our not being able to study a significant amount of it in the necessary resolution required. Or, to put it another way, in space no one can hear your synths.

Judging what can be heard is a bit like decoding The Wow! Signal, but details do begin to emerge. Certainly the bass tone thunders nicely in what mix we have and moments of organ work really shine. Bernatchez’s hooks are a key draw, but a clearer mix might reveal more of the occasionally audible deficiencies in his delivery, such as a lack of power and pitchier passages that push beyond his range. A guest spot by Michael Eriksen (Circus Maximus) on finale “Renew” sounds like he’s standing next to you at the SETI console harmonising with the relatively staticky work of Bernatchez that’s emanating from the bowels of the universe. 

Nevertheless, like the inscrutable stars above, Interstellar I manages to captivate despite its cryptic mix. The latter half of “Initiation Day” is an album highlight, sojourning through a melancholic bass solo and eerie synth work before crescendoing in a gorgeous outro that pulls from the jazzy prog influence of their friends in The Anchoret as the album’s narrator begins to question his insidious employer’s motivations. An explosive instrumental section on “Rain / Solar Winds” evokes a Lucasian space battle triggered by what seems to be a sample of the classic Pokémon battle intro theme. And those earworm choruses and chants remain implanted in my brain as though a facehugger put them there and a xenomorph’s about to burst out of my skull³. The fact that Voidchaser’s scrappy charm and singalong hooks manage to break through the godawful production is testament to the incredible potential on offer here—down the end of some wormhole into a parallel universe, there’s a version of Interstellar I where nothing’s changed except the mix and master and I’m touting it as a potential top 10 album of the year. 

Lurking somewhere out there in the swallowing maw of space, far beyond the reaches of our parochial solar system, is a signal we’ve named Voidchaser. It seems to be playing music, and what we can hear sounds inviting. Unfortunately, technology has its limitations, and our resolution is low. Like the improvement in quality between the Hubble and James Webb telescopes, we need better receivers to really hear what’s going on. A manned mission to make contact is being planned, and it’s going to be led by a Jesuit with a mixing deck. 

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Recommended tracks: Welcome to Terra Corp, Initiation Day, Ivory Tower
You may also like: Charlie Griffiths, Parius, The Anchoret
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

Voidchaser is:
– Chad Bernatchez (vocals, guitar)
– Jici Lord-Gauthier (guitar, bass) 
– Colin MacAndrew (drums)

With guests:
– Charlie Griffiths (guitar, track 4)
– Michael Eriksen (vocals, track 8)

1. Not to be confused with terrible alien music. ↩︎
2. I really do recommend The Sparrow, it’s a great first contact story with a strong philosophical core. There’s a dual narrative, so from the start we know that the expedition has only one survivor, the mission’s priest, who has lost his faith, and has returned mutilated, traumatised, and disgraced. The novel unspools the story of the expedition setting out, and the investigation of the priest and his trauma post-mission. ↩︎
3. I know this isn’t how facehugger’s actually work, don’t @ me. ↩︎