On January 23 in 2022, Jack Bergin woke up in an ambulance. Prone on a gurney, hurtling through the streets of Melbourne toward the nearest E.R., the Void Of Vision frontman was confused and terrified, uncertain of how he’d arrived here.
The immediate cause: Bergin had suffered a seizure in the dead of night, nearly biting off his tongue in the process, and fortunately awakening his household who promptly contacted emergency services. The more fundamental, tectonic-plates-of-life shifting reason was revealed after days of tests and a revolving door of specialists: Bergin had a “glitch” in his head. An arteriovenous malformation (AVM), to be precise, a tangle of blood vessels in his brain, revealed by MRI and CT scans.
Cautiously discharged from medical care after 10 days with a prescription of seizure medication, and the advice to “avoid activities that raise blood pressure”, Bergin instead soldiered on, shooting an intense music video for for DOMINATRIX, the lead single the band’s 2023 CHRONICLES II: HEAVEN EP just days after leaving his hospital bed, before touring internationally across North America and Europe, and returning home for the recording of CHRONICLES III: UNDERWORLD.
Though Void Of Vision ploughed ahead with all commitments, a creeping exhaustion forced Bergin to take stock of what his body was telling him, ultimately forcing him to step back and simultaneously halt all proceedings. Ever the artist and storyteller, Bergin’s version of adaptation led to the genesis of a “second Jack”, a more private, disconnected persona to act as alibi for his being absent and less available on tour. This persona was dubbed the Angel Of Darkness, a shadow-self and creative gimmick that enabled the real Jack Bergin to take his foot off the gas, to take the space he so needed to get through each day on tour, whilst still propelling Void Of Vision’s artistic world forward.
Alas, the steps taken were not enough: on April 5 in 2023, Bergin awoke to a searing headache unlike anything he’d experienced before and checked himself into hospital. Scans revealed that the AVM had ruptured, and he was suffering a brain bleed. Surgery was now essential; immediately it was clear that Void Of Vision’s schedule, including headline shows, festivals and the recording of their next album, needed to be wiped clean, as Jack was hospitalised for the foreseeable future.
Experiencing what he today acknowledges was little short of an existential crisis, Bergin spent the weeks in his hospital bed in a state of exhaustive, draining introspection, reflection and analysis, oscillating between contradictory emotions, facing his own mortality and questioning everything: “Was / is it all worth it? What am I doing with my life? Who am I without the band? What will I leave behind?”
“Trying to make music for a living is like a bloodsport, but one where even moments of triumph can feel hollow,” Bergin reveals. “At times I felt totally over it, fed up with giving literally everything for people to just not give a shit, at others I’d be mad at myself for indulging in a pity party. My feelings were a constant juxtaposition.”
From this state of conflict, Bergin’s internal war of attrition, came What I’ll Leave Behind, Void Of Vision’s fourth album.
With a loftier, metaphor-shrouded concept no longer resonating as appropriate catharsis for what Bergin endured and continues to battle, the album instead became a raw, open-heart and open-vein journey into a ravaged psyche locked in vicious cycles, with Bergin eschewing the album’s initial fascia in favour of “total honesty”: “The album is a reflection, on and of everything; coming to terms with life and mortality, finding inner peace from within the impact crater.”
What I’ll Leave Behind finds Bergin and his bandmates, James McKendrick (guitar/vocals), George Pfaender (drums) and Mitch Fairlie (guitar) more focused than ever, the genre polyamory of the CHRONICLES era smelted and reforged into a sound that is distinctly, unmistakably, joyously their own. Nasty, heavy, yet sleekly surgical, it offers the perfect soundtrack for a journey from disaster to acceptance, via trauma, uncertainty, loss and learning.
“I feel a lot better now about dealing with the future, about balancing my health and art,” says Bergin, re-energised following a successful first round of gamma knife radiosurgery and a full US tour supporting ERRA. “I’m grateful to be alive”.
