Infernum

Production: Grate-y, faded and deteriorated. Overall pretty poor, probably in some homage to a misunderstood idea.

Review: Simple black metal from Capricornus of Graveland fame and buddy Annextiomarus with some help from fellow Gravelander Rob Darken on keyboards. For all purposes the drumming is a style and roughly matches the drumming on "Thousand Swords" with Darkthrone-style stomp-beat pumping underneath some slashing pattern of metallic high hat strikes.

Rhythmic changes are well covered and percussions guide much of this music in definition although the real structure as in all metal is the guitars which are shifting patterns of prolonged chord repetition rather than the thunderous fast changes of death metal; all of the speed is in the strumming, creating a gentle layering of melody and a simple gratification to these simple-conclusion phrases.

Architectures picked from simple variants of the scale, are with many triads being applied in judicious mandate of finality, but in the style of later Slayer or early Emperor, in fervent use of an equal but melodically superior response to any phrase, forming an equalization and calm that can only be called "atmospheric."

In some tribute to Graveland the tuning on the guitars is basically the same, as are some of the more "majestic" parts of this material where it stretches to show glimpses of a perspective of future somewhere in its darkness. Most songs are so simple however that few mysteries lurk behind the complex reconfiguration of their rhythms, only the enjoyment of a certain kind of existential stimulus: simple melodies and integrated polyrhythmic movement.

The compositional elements here are used independently as aesthetic conditioning to a mood, creating a dark ambience that is familiar but decently enough done to make this a reasonable triumph of melody over the simplicity of its setting. Although its formation is indistinct within the "new school" of Polish blackmetal, sounding like a more atmospheric Graveland or less atmospheric Behemoth, this music remains distinctive for its adventurous, often goofy melodies.

The cover insides are about two pages of text concerning the philosophical decline of humanity away from "true values," including a couple lines about pride in the "White Family" although no other race is mentioned, which seems to affirm nihilism while at the same time declaring a revolution against Christian values toward old-style Odinism and a society of strength and freedom. For those who get twitchy about such issues it may be wise to bypass this release.

Infernum gives an inspirational glance at possible glory but also reminds us of discontiguous, broken, confused and expedient thought patterns encouraged by a society "free" of its own desire for existential willpower. As such this release is a balance between the heartbroken and the ambitious.