UMUR "Tales Between Reality and Madness" is the debut full-length studio album by Italian, Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna based sludge/stoner metal act Void of Sleep. The album was released through Aural Music in January 2013. Void of Sleep was formed in 2010 and their only release before "Tales Between Reality and Madness" is the "Giants and Killers (2011)" promo EP.

The music on "Tales Between Reality and Madness" is heavy and quite varied sludge/stoner metal. Stylistically it´s a combination of Black Sabbath influenced stoner doom and Mastodon´s more simple and melodic sludgy material. There´s a slight psychadelic edge to the music too, which provides it with additional flavor. There´s also a slight hardcore edge to the music, which as an example can be heard when the band use bully/riot gang choirs. Frontman/guitarist Burdo has a strong voice and is able to sing both clean and more raw type distorted vocals. He is actually a really skilled singer and a great asset to the band´s sound. The songwriting is of good quality too and add to that a powerful and well sounding production and "Tales Between Reality and Madness" definitely comes off as a quality debut studio album release by Void of Sleep.

It can be argued that the music on the album isn´t wildly original, but when it´s as well played and well written, as it´s the case on "Tales Between Reality and Madness", the lack of a completely unique sound is of little importance. "Tales Between Reality and Madness" is overall a great quality album deserving a 3.5 star (70%) rating.

adg211288 Tales Between Reality and Madness is the debut full-length album by Italian metal act Void of Sleep. The album was released in 2013. Void of Sleep previously released the EP Giants and Killers in 2011. The band is one of those where it isn’t really possible to pigeon-hole them in any one genre. On Tales Between Reality and Madness there are elements of progressive metal, stoner metal and doom metal but ultimately the real driving force behind the band’s sound is sludge metal.

In some ways Void of Sleep remind me of sludge metal giants Mastodon. They have a similar vibe compared to that band’s earliest work, so long as you imagine those songs using the largely clean vocal style that Mastodon adopted from Crack the Skye onwards. There are growls present on Tales Between Reality and Madness but they really do play second fiddle to the clean vocals. The clean vocals themselves can be quite varied ranging from quite soft and melodic to having a little more of an edge to them, which gives the strongest of the sludge sections some real bite to them, making the choruses rather infectious. Tales Between Reality and Madness is a seven track album, and not one of them loses the band’s groove. I’d also say that Void of Sleep has an even stronger progressive element to their songs than Mastodon has ever had (despite the general consensus that they are a progressive band before all else) judging by the more varied structure to them, but I find the two bands an easy comparison all the same.

With the exception of those progressive tendencies Void of Sleep doesn’t play the sort of music that usually holds much interest to me. As far as sludge metal is concerned for me it’s usually Mastodon or nothing, and it’s a rare artist from the genre that manages to catch my attention otherwise. Void of Sleep however do more than catch my attention, they command it, and in Tales Between Reality and Madness they’ve produced the first truly surprising album I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing for 2013. An exceptional grade rating is deserved.

90/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/void-of-sleep-tales-between-reality-and-madness-t2787.html))