Call To The Void have been lurking within the musical underground for a while. In the summer of 2023, the London based band shared their debut single ‘Uncontrollable’ which blended sharp edged, 90s inspired elements – Pixies/Nirvana-eque basslines coupled with a noisy chorus – with a few 80s goth traits to create something that had one eye on the past, but sounded really punchy in the present. Their belated follow up, ‘Blow’, delivered in January 2024, explored a few different sounds. Stoking up the bass and relying more on a moody vocal, it shared moments that sounded, strangely, a little more like they were channelling a couple of old Billy Idol hits, but with the help of some aggressive guitar work, their love of 90s alternative sounds still remained obvious.

The band clearly value taking time over each musical move, and their third single – finally arriving in September 2024 – takes a slightly different avenue yet again. Sprawling across almost seven minutes, ‘Viper’s Venom’ never rushes, but instead takes time to build upon several musical ideas.

The opening notes, delivered with a crisp tone and played against a clean vocal, again, telegraphs a love of 90s rock bands. That’ll certainly be enough to attract fans of the style fairly swiftly. Then, bringing in a slow, heavyish riff, there’s more than a pinch of grunge at the heart of the sound, and this becomes more obvious when a meaty bassline is introdu0ced to power the second verse. Traces of Nirvana, The Toadies and even the later revivalist tones of Puddle of Mudd come together to create something huge, but it’s actually the vocal that impresses the most. Against the heavier, dark themed music, frontman Jack Osborne adds a strong melody with a clean vocal that brings another semi-gothic edge, but more than before, he uses higher registers and a wavering tone to create atmosphere.

This makes it clear that ‘Viper’s Venom’ isn’t just about heaviness, and by the midpoint, actually becomes greater than the sum of its parts. This lacks a big twist – as per ‘Blow’, which temporarily shifted from a classic alternative sound to introduce a hardcore vocal for its middle eight – but with a melodic lead guitar break bringing an extra burst of melody at the eleventh hour, it still feels like a rather complete experience.

Take a listen below.