by Niklas Göransson

After their debut album and a tour with Watain, Bestial Devotion and Nameless Void turned to new horizons. Amid isolation and personal upheaval, they forged the haunting, multilayered sound that would define Negative Plane’s next chapter.

 

NAMELESS VOID: When discussing our future direction, I remember us talking about how the MAYHEM song “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” felt like a stained-glass window. I wanted an atmosphere with a similar sense of grandeur. We said, ‘Okay, the debut is mean and aggressive – now let’s up the ante and create something more elevated and serious.’

When The Ajna Offensive released NEGATIVE PLANE’s debut album, “Et In Saecula Saeculorum”, in May 2006, the material was already quite old. They had completed the last track, “Unhallowed Ground”, in April 2005, but most of the songs were written several years earlier.

NAMELESS VOID: I wanted to move the guitarwork even further away from anything traditional. For me, extremity was no longer playing as fast as possible but rather about pushing the effects. I thought, ‘Reverb is cool – but with delay, a single note can sound like three, weaving this tapestry of sound that feels greater than the sum of its parts.’

Reverb adds depth by creating the illusion of space, as if the sound is echoing in a cavern or large hall. Delay takes this further, repeating a note at timed intervals and layering it to produce intricate overlaps. Combined, these effects can transform a riff into something much more textured and expansive.

NAMELESS VOID: That approach influenced how I wrote music – I’d experiment and shape my riffs around these effects. At the same time, Matthias and I were listening to a lot of BAUHAUS, CHRISTIAN DEATH, and similar bands. I loved how their guitars added so much complexity, filling spaces with atmosphere and openness.

BAUHAUS and CHRISTIAN DEATH were pioneers of post-punk and gothic rock, genres celebrated for their brooding ambiences and innovative use of texture.

NAMELESS VOID: I wanted something different from the same old black metal records I’d always listened to, but still dark and gloomy. Matthias and I were huge fans of Italian horror movies – Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, et cetera – and started searching for music that captured the same feeling while still sounding like metal.

Filmmakers Argento, Fulci, and Bava were pioneers of Italian horror cinema, known for blending vivid visuals with haunting atmospheres.

NAMELESS VOID: When it came to the Italian scene, MORTUARY DRAPE had always been the big one for us: the be-all and end-all of Italian black metal. For years, we obsessed over that dungeon-like feeling in their music. Then, DEATH SS – a name I’d heard mentioned forever – came into the picture when Matthias and I got our hands on “Evil Metal”.

Italy’s DEATH SS combined doom, occult themes, and theatrical horror to craft a uniquely dark sound. Their debut EP – “Evil Metal” from 1983 – is a masterpiece of sinister, riff-driven heavy metal.

NAMELESS VOID: We were consumed! But it only had three songs, so I quickly started craving something to scratch that same itch. Both of us loved BULLDOZER but wanted a sound we couldn’t quite define. Then a friend of Matthias said, ‘I think you’d like this band, BLACK HOLE.’

BESTIAL DEVOTION: The same guy who recommended PAGAN ALTAR was into obscure doomy stuff; he sent me BLACK HOLE’s “Land of Mystery”.

NAMELESS VOID: It was so strange! Both of us kind of liked the music, but it didn’t click right away. Then, Matthias and I got insanely high one day <laughs>. Stoned out of our minds, listening to “Land of Mystery”, it felt as if a door had been unlocked. Suddenly, everything made sense. We were blown away, like, ‘Holy shit! Why didn’t we know about this?’

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I lost my mind – ’BLACK HOLE is the coolest shit ever!’ I thought, ‘I’m gonna make a song like this’, and immediately started ripping it off for my solo project, FUNEREAL PRESENCE.

NAMELESS VOID: BLACK HOLE became as important to us as BATHORY was to the Scandinavians. I wanted to capture the feeling of “Land of Mystery” and weave it into our album – but within the established framework of NEGATIVE PLANE. “All Souls” came about right after we discovered BLACK HOLE.

Like “Unhallowed Ground”, Nameless Void tailored the music of “All Souls” to fit its title, which was conceived after he passed a churchyard called All Souls Cemetery.

NAMELESS VOID: I had this image of the Reaper in a field at harvest time, and that shaped how I wrote the music. I worked hard to make the song sound exactly like what I envisioned – an autumnal scene heralding winter, with Death standing beside a scarecrow. As I worked on it, different pieces started falling into place.

For the closing section, Nameless Void cannibalised a part of “Fallen Star” – the first NEGATIVE PLANE song ever written, featured on the “Surreality” demo.

NAMELESS VOID: “Fallen Star” is terrible, but I liked one riff, so I reworked it for the ending of “All Souls”. That song became one of my favourites because I’d always wanted to create a fade-out, replacing the traditional stop with total noise and atmosphere. From the start, I planned for it to transition into something else, leaving behind a lingering sense of unease.

 

Beyond the musical influences, the environment where NEGATIVE PLANE’s second album took form shaped its mood and atmosphere considerably. Since September 2004, Bestial Devotion and Nameless Void had been living together in a sizeable house on a five-acre property in Seminole County, east-central Florida.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: The place sat about forty-five minutes outside Orlando, deep in the swampland. There wasn’t much nearby – just two churches, a gas station, and cops who wanted to bust us. Huge trees enclosed the property, with a metal gate completely hiding our house from view.

Their address was printed on the promo tape, so I looked it up. The house is indeed remote, surrounded by dense trees with only a small driveway connecting it to the adjacent dirt road.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: That road stretched for about a mile, unpaved and isolated, with no signs of civilisation. Words can’t describe it. Location-wise, the closest analogy – no joke – might be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not that it was filthy, but very isolated.

NAMELESS VOID: Strange times, man. We lived very secluded – if you wanted to do anything or see anyone, it took at least an hour of driving. And that was just for Orlando; getting to Tampa for a show meant adding another hour and a half.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Ed and I used to take nightly walks to Lake Harney, talking about inspiration and what we wanted to create. At one point, the place was barricaded with red lights and ‘Closed to the public’ signs. I looked it up online and discovered that people had been dumping corpses there.

NAMELESS VOID: Oh. That’s true – the lake was shut down for a while. They did find some bodies there <laughs>. I totally forgot about that.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: As I said earlier, I believe the house was a crime scene before we moved in. Now, I can’t say for sure – but if any place were ever haunted, it would be that one. Once, I ran upstairs wielding a butcher knife because I thought someone had broken in; the sound of footsteps and stomping was so loud and obvious.

NAMELESS VOID: I remember people giving me rides from work and saying, ‘You live in the middle of fucking nowhere. It feels weird, and we don’t wanna be here. This is the last time you’re getting a ride home.’ Lots of shit like that.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I’ll swear to this until the day I die: I saw and heard some crazy shit when I was home alone. Completely sober – no drugs, nothing. Wild stuff happened in that house. Without anyone else there, it felt like you were at the end of the fucking world, all by yourself.

 

After the 2007 tour with ANGELCORPSE and WATAIN, NEGATIVE PLANE’s activities slowed significantly.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Honestly, we were consumed by our personal lives. It was, in many ways, a cursed year – just focusing on survival, trying not to go under. I stopped paying attention to whatever reception the album got, and I think Ed cared even less. We both had so much happening personally; too many things went wrong.

Can you give an example?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: Um, well… I almost cut my arm off at work <laughs>. So, there’s that. Back then, I worked in construction. You know those all-glass doors with handles they have at banks? I was carrying one, and as we turned a corner, the other guy hit it against the edge. Because those doors are under so much pressure, the glass just exploded.

Tempered glass is created by heating the material to high temperatures and then cooling it rapidly, a process that introduces internal stress. This makes the glass more durable – but with enough structural damage, it can shatter into blunt fragments as the stored energy is released.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: I turned my face, thankfully, but shards went right through my clothes, cutting my chest and arm. One piece flew by, ‘Whoosh!’ and sliced me up here <shows arm>, nicking all the tendons in my fingers and forearm. I had to get surgery, but the results weren’t great. They told me that if I’d moved even slightly differently, it could’ve taken my whole arm off.

How long was the recovery?

BESTIAL DEVOTION: It took months before I regained movement in my hand. For a while, I just assumed I’d never play any instrument again because that’s what they told me. Since I worked manual jobs, I couldn’t even earn a living – and with no social safety net here, I had nothing. Plus, on top of all that, I was in a new relationship.

NAMELESS VOID: Our jobs were pretty dead-end, and we kept trying to find a bass player, but nothing ever came together. The isolation began taking its toll, and I felt more and more like a hamster on a wheel. We worked on music, but nothing clicked. Apathy set in, and progress seemed impossible.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: No money, physical injury, and problems with the house – the guy who owned it started inviting strange people over, and things just got weird. Our friends were either getting into trouble or ending up in jail.

NAMELESS VOID: If life is weighing you down, living out in the middle of nowhere doesn’t help. Especially when everything around you looks dilapidated, and everyone you meet is a degenerate. And then it’s the whole, ‘When in Rome…’, as they say <laughs>. I certainly had my share of decadence down there; part of me wanted nothing more than to escape it all.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: One day, I said to myself, ‘The best way to fix this is to start fresh.’ I knew I had to leave Florida. No matter how much I liked some of the people there – things just weren’t working out.

NAMELESS VOID: I dreamed of being somewhere with old architecture – a place where setting foot outside didn’t mean facing ugly Florida plants and relentless, sweltering heat. A lot of what became “Stained Glass Revelations” grew from longing for another life in a place far away. I think that yearning had a big influence on the music.

 

In early 2008, Bestial Devotion relocated to New York City. Six months later, Nameless Void followed suit.

BESTIAL DEVOTION: We both started over from scratch – a clean break. Ed went out to bars more than I did and began meeting people who actually knew about NEGATIVE PLANE, some of whom had even heard our album. I remember his surprise: ‘Oh, so someone is aware of us?’