The waters were warm, shallow, and nourishing, the kind of place where prehistoric life formed. Modern microscopic images of bacterial fossils from this area depict the haunted, fractal skeletons of Jurassic beasts more alien to us than the arcane life in the cosmos. 

These ancient creatures of the prairies preserved through time in the rock bed under our feet are an immortal reminder that to live on the prairies is to live at the beginning of time. 

This idea of eternity is at the heart of Winnipeg-based band Holy Void. The psychedelic rock outfit’s new album, All Will Be Revealed In Time, is a frantic yet measured voyage into the depths of perpetuity. 

Through heavy distortion, experimental string arrangements and supernatural lyrics, Holy Void’s sophomore record absorbs the dark fragility of human ideology and bluntly reflects it back onto us. Michael Henderson-Castle and Danny Hacking, two of the group’s six members, shared with RANGE how their distinct feelings of space and time rest within the album’s pathos.  

For Henderson-Castle, that comes from a “totally haunted” house he lived in for a brief time just before this decade began. Between the out-of-tune piano and “a bunch of weird old artists’ crap in the backyard,” Henderson-Castle says that place had a character and feeling to it that he tried to tie into his songs. 

To Hacking, the pressures of time within the isolation of the early 2020s collided with his impatience for wanting these songs (some of which were written five years ago) released into the world. 

“Everything just took so long, because I guess the pandemic was two years, and then we’re all in our thirties and had to have, like, adult lives,” he says. 

Since Holy Void’s 2019 debut LP Naught, the band has added some new members, notably Mirina Van Der Veen on violin and Rob Knaggs on cello, turning the band into a sextet. 

By introducing classical instruments into the chaos of psychedelia, the band is able to push their sonics to their furthest reaches, intentionally sabotaging what we’ve come to expect from heavy psych-rock groups. 

“I don’t think anybody in the band is super into long egotistical guitar solos or that kind of thing. Which can be fun, and there’s a place for that,” Henderson-Castle says. “What we’re trying to do is create something cohesive where everybody’s contributing something equally, and then it lifts the whole thing up.”

“A six-person democracy is what we’ve been referring to ourselves [as],” adds Hacking. 

That dedication to balance, in some strange way, makes All Will Be Revealed In Time feel uncoordinated yet completely cohesive in its endless curiosity. This is in part thanks to audio engineer, producer, and Holy Void member Grant Trippel’s meticulous attention to the record’s immense sound. 

The gothic “The Restless” fits as the soundtrack to a party for medieval villagers after they finish burning witches at the stake, and Kyle Loewen’s thunderous drumming on “Love” marches to the dissonant chimes of the song’s catchy refrain.

“Dead” features  panicked, reverberating screams announcing the arrival of a captivating stoner-rock guitar riff, as the hypnotic rhythm section stomps its way into a graveyard of the undead.