Watch out. The circle pit’s about to slam. Inferi unleashes a ferocious assault of monstrous metal on the band’s latest EP, Of Sunless Realms.
The release, and the extreme metal style in general, can be polarizing for listeners, and reaction to the sounds of Inferi will have a lot to do with one’s preexisting personal taste in rock music.
Metal masterminds Malcolm Pugh and Mike Low play blazing arpeggios, sweeps, patterns and licks; quick, technical and nimble guitar passages of an incredibly high degree of instrumental difficulty. A ridiculously fast double kick drum pounds through a good bit of the compositions, punctuated by some spooky synths.
The demonic cookie monster vocals will be off-putting for many, though. The painfully screaming vocal style serves as a signature of the death-metal and black-metal niches, but surely chases off a good percentage of listeners who may give the music more of a chance if overlaid with a different vocal style. If a sense of terror, anger and disconcertment is the target, Inferi nails it.
As brutal and overbearing as it is, Inferi’s music really is symphonic in parts, very advanced and sophisticated melodically on the guitar breaks, sweeps and interludes.
“It’s death metal of the highest order,” one Inferi supporter said. “Well executed metal.”
“Aeons Torn” displays a neat, very quick arpeggiation pattern plinking along and peppering the composition.
The guitar work throughout gives some nods to founders of metal such as Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden and company, with epic, soaring guitar breaks blended with modern Scandinavian-influenced black- and death-metal sounds with a dash of DragonForce (instrumentally).
Occasionally, the music does display a groove underlying its seemingly untamable brutality. The ending passage of “Eldritch Evolution,” which goes with more of a half-time head-nodding tempo rather than such blisteringly fast speed-metal throughout, should get many moving and swaying.
“The Summoning” serves as a brief, lower-intensity ear break with its haunting piano, organ and chorus. But the main purpose here really seems to be to lead the listener into the remaining pit of shredding brutality.
The cover artwork for Of Sunless Realms fits just perfectly with the style; it features wild, multi-eyed, massive, tentacled monsters, fire, scenes of hellish destruction and a cadre of cloaked figures, along with, of course, a custom Inferi logo displaying the band name in a nearly indecipherable font—a traditional badge of honor in the extreme metal community, nearly as hard to interpret as the lyrics.
Despite occasional use of piano, creepy, quieter synth interludes and the occasional stomping groove, Of Sunless Realms doesn’t exactly contain a great deal of crossover appeal. The vocals come across, by design, as abrasive, to say the least. Some, understandably, can’t take it.
But there’s an existing scene for heart-pounding, thunderously galloping metal fury, and Inferi continues to earn respect in the metal community.
Find Of Sunless Realms by Inferi on Bandcamp, Spotify and other online platforms.
