Negative Plane X
2025-01-22
by Niklas Göransson
Amidst the chaos of 2020, Negative Plane sealed The Pact… – an album forged in isolation and steeped in desolation. As the final chapter unfolds, Nameless Void and Bestial Devotion reflect on their legacy and future in underground metal.
NAMELESS VOID: “Stained Glass Revelations” was a pretty moody album, and I started to miss the aggression of our debut – especially tracks like “The Chaos Before the Light”. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to channel that angry, adolescent energy again?’ I wanted a return to something untamed and wild – the Brazilian influence.
While not much happened on the NEGATIVE PLANE front, its two core members stayed musically active.
In March 2014, Sepulchral Voice Records issued “The Archer Takes Aim,” the debut full-length by Bestial Devotion’s black metal solo project, FUNEREAL PRESENCE. A few months later, Profound Lore and Invictus Productions released “Silence in the Ancestral House” – the second album by OCCULTATION, a psychedelic doom act featuring Nameless Void on guitar.
NAMELESS VOID: “Silence in the Ancestral House” was another gloomy record, and part of me really craved that DD Crazy (SARCÓFAGO) type blasting. Something primal, mean, and boneheaded – not overthought. It felt like a mental rebellion after being steeped in slow, introspective music for so long.

By 2016, Nameless Void had begun developing ideas for a new NEGATIVE PLANE album built around a cohesive narrative arc – a story unfolding from the opening track to the final song. With about ninety per cent of the music complete, all that remained were the arrangements.
NAMELESS VOID: Figuring out how to connect the pieces always poses the greatest challenge. And it’s not simply a matter of making everything fit – it’s about finding the best approach to mesh each part, which is tricky because I can dream up countless ways to link different sections. That’s when filler riffs start creeping in.
‘Filler riffs’ refer to brief guitar parts that bridge one main section to the next but offer little in terms of substance or memorability.
NAMELESS VOID: Fillers are problematic because they create moments where listeners think, ‘I’ll just skip ahead.’ When I write for NEGATIVE PLANE, every element must have a purpose and stand on its own. I don’t want any skippable parts. Achieving this takes time, involving trial and error with countless riffs – some fail, others succeed, and many fall in between.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: We were always working on something, so there was no real hiatus. Ed actually wrote more material than I expected, to be honest. Of course, I wasn’t opposed to it, but so much time had passed that I’d become sceptical about us ever finishing the material and recording another album.
NAMELESS VOID: <laughs> I’d be sceptical too. But for me, something that just ‘kind of’ works doesn’t work at all. I have an absolutist outlook: if a song is merely okay, it’s terrible. Hence why it takes me so long to create. Also, walking the tightrope of staying true to NEGATIVE PLANE’s essence while breaking new ground gets harder with each album.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: Exactly. Even though I’m not writing the main NEGATIVE PLANE riffs, I still have a vision of what I want the music to become. But by then, it had been so long. Plus, at the time, I was waist-deep in working on the FUNEREAL PRESENCE album that later became “Achatius”.
NEGATIVE PLANE returned to Norway in 2017 to perform at Beyond the Gates, a festival in Bergen featuring yet another remarkable lineup.
NAMELESS VOID: By that point, I was in a frustrated, jaded mode, struggling to come up with new music and whatnot. But MASTER’S HAMMER played, and we’d never expected to catch them live. That’s the main thing I remember about Beyond the Gates.
After sharing the stage with both MASTER’S HAMMER and DENNER/SHERMANN – a band featuring the two classic MERCYFUL FATE guitarists – it seems NEGATIVE PLANE have performed alongside nearly all of their stated influences at one point or another.
NAMELESS VOID: We’ve never played with MORTUARY DRAPE – that would be another dream come true. It’s been close a few times, but it just hasn’t worked out. I’d love to open for MARTYRIUM someday <laughs>. I know it’s completely impossible, but oh well.
Speaking of MARTYRIUM – if I remember correctly, one of the former members sent Nameless Void some lyrics after my NEGATIVE PLANE interview in 2016.
NAMELESS VOID: Yes! We were regularly jamming a MARTYRIUM song, “A Living Ba”, trying to make it coherent. Once Daevas provided the lyrics, I didn’t have to improvise random gibberish anymore – I could actually sing the proper text. Overall, we wanted to keep the mayhem but make it sound more intentional. Matthias tried to ‘Neophyte’ things up a bit.
Neophyte was MARTYRIUM’s drummer.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: I tried to re-create some of his chaotic moves. I smoothed out certain parts but deliberately messed up other sections the way he used to. Around the time we got those lyrics, we played Celebrare Noctem Fest in Austria and performed the song live there. I remember seeing some random guy in the audience going absolutely ballistic.
NAMELESS VOID: Then, for some reason, we stopped playing it. That song is actually pretty challenging – imposing any kind of structure was really hard, which is probably why we dropped it.
In March 2018, NEGATIVE PLANE teamed up with MALOKARPATAN – a Slovakian band signed to The Ajna Offensive and Invictus Productions – for a US tour. At the time, MALOKARPATAN were promoting their second album, “Nordkarpatenland”, released a few months earlier.
NAMELESS VOID: It was a major achievement for MALOKARPATAN to make it here at that stage. As far as I know, none of the bands from the old Czechoslovakian scene – like MASTER’S HAMMER, ROOT, or TÖRR – ever toured the US while still in their prime. Most of them only came over to play Maryland Deathfest or whatever decades after the fact.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: Amazing band. I heard their debut, “Stridžie dni”, when it was released in 2015 – I can’t recall how or why, which is odd because I rarely check out new stuff. Something about it grabbed me, maybe the cover art or a recommendation from someone. I listened to it non-stop for a week and then emailed them, ‘Where the fuck did you come from?’
NAMELESS VOID: I visited MALOKARPATAN in Slovakia just before the recording of “Nordkarpatenland” – literally as the band members were heading to the studio in Prague. I wanted to see Elizabeth Bathory’s castle, and they offered me a ride.
Čachtice Castle in western Slovakia was the residence and later prison of Elizabeth Bathory – often referred to as the ‘Blood Countess’. Thanks to bands like VENOM and TORMENTOR, the 16th-century aristocrat has become somewhat of a patron saint of black metal.
NAMELESS VOID: I wasn’t really paying attention – just chatting and drinking in the van. Suddenly, they’re like, ‘Right, we’re here – enjoy!’ I asked, ‘How do I get back?’ and they said, ‘By train. Don’t worry, everyone speaks English.’ I ended up trudging up a dirt road to the castle, poking around, and once it got dark, I thought, ‘Holy shit, there’s not a train station in sight.’ And, yeah, absolutely no English speakers anywhere.
Later that year, NEGATIVE PLANE returned to Montreal for Messe des Morts, where they shared the stage with resurrected Hungarian black metal veterans TORMENTOR.
NAMELESS VOID: It was absolutely amazing. They played songs I never imagined I’d hear live. Most bands tend to overlook their demos, but TORMENTOR actually included some of my favourite tracks from “Seventh Day of Doom”.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: They sounded almost identical to their “Anno Domini” era. It blew my mind. I’ve heard old live recordings from back then, and they’re even tighter now than on those tapes. Seeing TORMENTOR was a personal triumph – I thought, ‘Alright, who else could I possibly want to play with?’
NAMELESS VOID: For me, “Seventh Day of Doom” has always resonated more because it had that MERCYFUL FATE vibe, whereas “Anno Domini” felt more second-wave black metal but still uniquely their own. Nonetheless, the atmosphere they created on both releases was incredibly powerful.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: “Anno Domini” has such a distinctive energy, capturing that late 80s period where bands were pushing extremes in their own isolated bubbles. Without the internet or global connectivity, everyone had a slightly different way of building on albums like “Seven Churches” (POSSESSED), “Morbid Tales” (CELTIC FROST), or “Hell Awaits” (SLAYER).
TORMENTOR’s iconic 1988 recording “Anno Domini”, while initially circulated mostly through tape trading, proved hugely influential on the nascent second wave of black metal – especially due to the distinctive vocals of Attila Csihar, who later became synonymous with MAYHEM’s “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”.
NAMELESS VOID: Attila is one of the few black metal frontmen who can truly get away with just being a vocalist. He puts so much extra effort into everything he does, and it really shows. Seeing him live was unforgettable.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: I adore TORMENTOR’s drummer – he used roto toms or something similar and always threw in massive fills. It’s hard to describe. To me, a great drummer is someone whose beat suits the riff so perfectly that you think, ‘Yeah, this fits like a fist in the eye.’ Then, out of nowhere, he’ll throw in something unexpected, like a polka intro. Whenever I hear him play, I picture a dude with a massive personality who’s got a lot on his mind.
In early 2019, after NEGATIVE PLANE played shows in Poland and Germany, Nameless Void completed the music for a new song: “A Work to Stand a Thousand Years”. Knowing it would be the album opener, he could finally begin working on the lyrics.
NAMELESS VOID: That marked the turning point. Until then, our third album felt like a distant possibility. I had a few songs and plenty of ideas but no lyrics. Being able to play “A Work to Stand a Thousand Years” from start to finish made it sink in: ‘Oh, this is real. Something’s gonna happen now.’
Six months later, NEGATIVE PLANE performed “A Work to Stand a Thousand Years” in Ireland – in a deconsecrated church, no less. This set took place at De Mysteriis Dom Invicti, a commemorative event for the twentieth anniversary of Invictus Productions.
NAMELESS VOID: Darragh (Invictus) thought the song sounded really promising. It felt great to finally show both him and Tyler (Ajna) that there had been some modicum of progress. It seemed like we’d kept telling them about our new album forever – so much so that they were probably thinking, ‘Sure, they’ll do a third record. Okay. Mm-hmm.’
That’s a rather unusual move these days, performing unreleased material live.
NAMELESS VOID: Well, it harkens back to an old tradition within rock and metal music. I’d been reading about classic bands like LED ZEPPELIN trying out songs live before they were fully finished. I have huge respect for how those guys worked, with a more organic approach and minimal studio tinkering.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: It’s always interesting to see how audiences react to new songs compared to the old ones. We don’t do it often since NEGATIVE PLANE isn’t some super-prolific touring band – but if we were, I’d love to test material live more regularly. It’s the best way to notice things like, ‘This section isn’t landing; everyone’s eyes glazed over, so maybe it’s a bit dull?’
NAMELESS VOID: Also, keeping tracks confined to rehearsal makes it easy to discard or rework ideas without much pressure – but putting them on stage forces the process forward. BLACK SABBATH used to develop material live; “War Pigs”, for instance, supposedly evolved from them jamming “Warning”, which is the song that inspired “Unhallowed Ground”.
Speak of the Devil, while watching video footage from the evening, I was surprised to see NEGATIVE PLANE cover BLACK SABBATH’s eponymous song.
NAMELESS VOID: Oh, we’d wanted to do that since 2015. I’m not entirely sure, but I think our reasoning was like, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to do this in a church?’ And in our minds, “Black Sabbath” is the most evil song ever written – so yeah, we’ll definitely play it again.
Even more surprising was hearing Nameless Void’s clean vocals – very impressive.
NAMELESS VOID: I mean, singing isn’t really my thing, but I can pull off a passable Ozzy. Any kind of black metal vocals would completely undermine the brilliance of that song. We decided to stay as close to the original as possible, which felt like the best way to handle it.
Six months later, about a year after Nameless Void finished “A Work to Stand a Thousand Years”, New York City became the epicentre of COVID-19 hysteria.
NAMELESS VOID: My workplace shut down in mid-March 2020. At first, I thought we’d be off for a week or so. Then, when it turned into an extended leave – with full pay – I thought, ‘This is the greatest thing ever!’ Suddenly, I had so much time. I got to relax but also took remote classes to keep my mind sharp.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: Deemed an ‘essential worker’, I found myself running around hospitals. The company I work for focused on building temporary morgues and overflow facilities. I sat in meetings about setting up hundreds of ventilator-equipped beds on short notice, all while trying to avoid catching what everyone feared. At the time, it felt like the plague was upon us.
NAMELESS VOID: One day, I had some work training downtown. When I took the train, it was almost empty. The financial district near the World Trade Center – normally packed with tourists – lay practically deserted. You could’ve seen tumbleweeds rolling down Broadway.
That sounds eerie as hell.
NAMELESS VOID: Yeah, it looked apocalyptic – but I felt ecstatic. Like, ‘I’ve always dreamed of walking around the city with hardly anyone here!’ I remember listening to the first CARNIVORE album, and that desolate, Mad Max-style vision of New York was the perfect soundtrack.
Drawing inspiration from his surroundings, Nameless Void returned to the unfinished NEGATIVE PLANE material.
NAMELESS VOID: I’d had the opening riff of “The Other Door” since 2015, along with another section – notable for its ridiculous drumbeat – but could never figure out how to connect them. NEGATIVE PLANE songs aren’t linear. If you cut a section out, it’s not always clear where it fits. For us, writing is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle.
About a month into lockdown, Nameless Void stumbled upon one of the missing pieces.
NAMELESS VOID: I already had plenty of ideas; it was just a matter of pinpointing exactly which gaps needed to be filled. That day, I spent time messing around with my new bass guitar, adding bits and pieces. I’d take a break, come back an hour later, and think, ‘Maybe this could work… maybe I’ll change that…’ I remember sending Matthias regular progress updates.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: That’s usually how it goes. Ed will demo new sections with keyboard drums and send them over via WhatsApp. Then it’s a steady stream of, ‘Okay, today’s version has bells in this part’, followed by, ‘Oh, I swapped out a riff here.’ We might end up with ten different keyboard-drum demos. I basically act as a second set of ears.
NAMELESS VOID: Exactly. Wait, you were still in Long Island then?
BESTIAL DEVOTION: Yeah, I was renting a house and kept my kit in the basement. I’d listen to the demos, then head down to try out different drum patterns. As Ed sent me new ideas, I’d sit at home brainstorming beats, thinking, ‘This might be more dramatic with a fill here…’ That’s how I map things out.
NAMELESS VOID: Suddenly, the song started coming together. That’s when I began writing lyrics nonstop, figuring out, ‘Okay, what happens here? What comes next?’ Then I realised, ‘We only have six songs, so I need to wrap this up. I can’t let it go on too long.’ I would’ve kept stretching it otherwise.
After my deep dive into NEGATIVE PLANE’s third album, “The Pact…” for a 2022 interview, I was blown away by its scope and depth. Few bands beyond the likes of DEATHSPELL OMEGA rival the conceptual efforts behind this record. For instance, even though the lyrics themselves are contained within six songs, Nameless Void penned a separate 2,500-word document outlining the entire storyline and its historical references.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: Meanwhile, I lived alone out on Long Island, feeling pretty isolated. That was my experience: a really strange time. The forced isolation had a big impact on me – not necessarily for obvious reasons, but because I was stuck with myself for over a year. On the upside, I played guitar daily and ended up writing an album in the process.
NAMELESS VOID: As I told you, Matthias – from what I’ve heard, it’s my favourite of your FUNEREAL PRESENCE releases so far.
BESTIAL DEVOTION: I made a conscious decision not to repeat the whole ‘four-track, twelve-minute each’ formula – otherwise, it would’ve become a dumb cliché. The material has been done for a while, but I keep messing with it. I never record until I get that weird spark where I wake up thinking, ‘It must be right now.’
NAMELESS VOID: During lockdown, with nothing else happening, some of us in OCCULTATION got together – minus one member – and recorded a demo track at a local studio called Moonlight Mile. We found the place through a friend of the owner, Mike, and I immediately thought, ‘Wow, just the default drum sound is fantastic. Maybe we can record more stuff here?’

By late summer 2020, as lockdown restrictions eased, NEGATIVE PLANE began rehearsing their new material. In the 2022 interview, Nameless Void mentioned clashing with Bestial Devotion over the aforementioned ‘ridiculous drumbeat’ in “The Other Door”.
NAMELESS VOID: I showed you my process on the keyboard – I had a beat that made sense timing-wise, but it was completely ridiculous. It’s the kind of thing that would make a drummer look and sound silly. And Matthias isn’t going to humiliate himself unless he believes it genuinely serves the music.
log in to keep reading
The second half of this article is reserved for subscribers of the Bardo Methodology online archive. To keep reading, sign up or log in below.
