Am I Really That Bad Of A Person?: Psykhotic - Void feat. Adam Feuling of Dejected (Track Review) Released: 2/1/25
There's a particular kind of anger that only comes from someone who has genuinely been wronged. Not performed rage, not aesthetic darkness worn like a costume, but the white-knuckle, chest-tightening fury of a person who has been hurt and is finally, loudly, refusing to swallow it anymore. That's the energy Psykhotic brings to "Void," their debut single, and it's what separates this track from the crowded field of modern metalcore releases yearning for attention in the modern landscape. At just two minutes and thirty-five seconds, the song is a precision strike, economical, devastating, and far more emotionally layered than its runtime might suggest.
Psykhotic is the brainchild of Chicagoland guitarist and vocalist Brendan Andrew, whose listening history reads like a master course in modern heavy music. Influences ranging from Loathe, Spiritbox, and Northlane on the contemporary side, to Korn, Slipknot, Linkin Park, and Three Days Grace from an earlier era, have clearly been absorbed and digested rather than merely imitated. The result is a band with a genuine sonic identity that feels both current and rooted modern in its construction, but carrying the emotional directness of the early 2000s bands that made so many people fall in love with heavy music in the first place. Drummer Michelle Romasanta and bassist Justin Hetrovicz, who joined the lineup in 2025, round out a rhythm section that anchors the track with confidence and personality. "Void" also features a collaboration with Adam Feuling of Dejected, whose contribution proves to be more than a cameo; it's genuinely integral to the song's emotional architecture.
The track opens with no preamble. "Give a fuck about the loser / Slaughter the abuser / Burn the next chapter" are three lines that establish the song's central conflict immediately and without apology. The language is violent, but it isn't empty. This is the vocabulary of someone processing genuine trauma through the only emotional register loud enough to contain it. Metalcore has always been a genre that turns inward pain outward, and "Void" understands that assignment completely. The abuser referenced throughout isn't a vague, abstract antagonist; the specificity of the anger, the intimacy of the imagery, makes it clear this is drawn from something real. "I can smell your flesh / You can run but can't hide."These aren't the words of someone writing a character. These are the words of someone who spent a long time feeling powerless and is now, at least in this song, reclaiming something.
What elevates "Void" beyond a straightforward revenge fantasy, however, is the moment it chooses vulnerability. Buried in the mid-section, almost like a confession the song didn't plan to make, comes the line: "Torn apart by the hands of time (Am I really that bad of a person?) / A fragile soul / In a world of grime / Searching for meaning." That parenthetical, Am I really that bad of a person? is the emotional nucleus of the entire track. It reframes everything that came before it. The rage isn't coming from a place of power. It's coming from someone who has been so thoroughly worn down by abuse that they've started to believe the abuser's narrative about them. The violence of the opening verses is suddenly revealed as a kind of desperate self-assertion: I am not what you made me feel like I was. It's a quietly devastating piece of writing, and it gives the song a psychological complexity that most bands twice Psykhotic's experience struggle to achieve.
The chorus refrain "Why do you want me to suffer?" lands with compounding force each time it returns. On first pass, it reads as an accusation. By the time the song has shown us that fragile, questioning interior, it becomes something closer to genuine bewilderment. The narrator isn't just angry. They truly don't understand what they did to deserve this. That shift, subtle as it is, is the difference between a good metalcore song and a memorable one. The back half of "Void" constructs a layered vocal landscape that broadens the song's emotional scope considerably. This is where Adam Feuling's feature earns its place most clearly. The song stops feeling like one person's story and starts feeling like a collective testimony. Suffering, Andrew seems to be suggesting, is rarely as isolated as it feels in the moment. The closing repetition of "As the end draws near," cycling through those three figures before the song strips down to its barest conclusion, a flat, exhausted "Fuck you" is remarkably well-constructed. After nearly two and a half minutes of escalating emotional complexity, two words are all that's left. It's the sound of someone who has said everything they needed to say and has nothing left to prove.
"Void" is a debut that announces Psykhotic as a band worth taking seriously. It is heavy where it needs to be, melodic where it earns the right to be, and emotionally intelligent throughout. The Djent-influenced low-end and modern metalcore framework gives the track a contemporary sheen, while Andrew's nu-metalcore and early-2000s influences keep it grounded in the kind of raw, unpolished feeling that no amount of production can manufacture. The rhythm section of Romasanta and Hetrovicz hits with a tightness that suggests a band that has been doing the work, and the collaboration with Feuling demonstrates an instinct for knowing when a song needs more than one voice to tell its story fully. "Void" is almost frustratingly brief, which is perhaps the finest compliment a debut single can receive. It ends before you're ready for it to, and it lingers long after it does.
Go ahead and give Void a listen now:
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