Technical Death Metal is a bitchy mistress. Firstly being competent enough to actually pull it off is as challenging as a receiving oral from a racoon at 30,000 feet while juggling and secondly actually being able to write memorable and interesting songs that amount to more than tedious wankfests with loosely strung together riff ideas and half-baked harmonies is as illusive to many in the genre as the clitoris is to an ache ridden fourteen year old boy collecting war hammer and deepthroating bottles of mountain dew.
As the years have gone by since my initial induction into the world of tech-death, I’ve found myself on one hand rolling around in undiscovered gems and on the other maintaining a reasonable level of frustration at the tedious wankfests I riled against mere sentences prior. Either the genre is getting more and more saturated or my patience and attention span is decreasing rapidly in direct proportion to my age and fried chicken consumption. I think the answer to that question is probably both.
Every now and again I find a band that brings a smile to face; a band that somehow manages to get everything right, and still innovate enough to make sure that the audience is experiencing something somewhat new and not just rehashed The Black Dahlia Murder’s Nocturnal b-sides and poor Arsis imitations, (Yes, before anyone yells at me like the shoutiest hobo on a train out of Coventry on a Saturday afternoon, TBDM are not strictly tech-death – besides maybe the Ritual album – but I think most of the American tech-death scene would quote Nocturnal as influence and those who don’t are rubbish). In a roundabout sort of way, I’d like to bring this conversation around to Inferi; a tech-death act that are very, very, very good.
Despite now having four albums under their belt and a rabid cult following, I’ve been unaware of Inferi until recently. A trailer for the new release; Revenant appeared between a post of a local band begging for likes and a shitpost meme on my facebook, and after absolutely no consideration whatsoever I decided which one commanded my attention.
Having listened to Revenant quite a lot over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to pinpoint what it is about it that makes it so good, which is actually quite simple really.
The songwriting on Revenant is in short; excellent. The tracks are lengthy but don’t overstay their welcome, and they all flow into each other like a tomato soup enema. Each track is brimming with new ideas and riffs and while eager to show them all to you like a slobbering minecraft youtuber, isn’t so insecure that you’ll drop your attention and wander off to fist the dog that it will happily take it’s time over certain sections and flesh ideas out to their full extent, without feeling like they’re trying to rinse out the run-time. Having hooks and melodic phrases littered elegantly throughout gives something for the listener to grasp onto between the chaotic and bombastic elements of the album.
The technicality and complexity of the instrumentation is fully on show, but is conservative in places to suit the song rather than bludgeoning the listener over the head with spectacular but pedestrian retention of scale use on a constant basis. There’s enough room for each instrument to have it’s time to shine but will fall in line as a cohesive whole at a moment’s notice.
Having Trevor Strnad of The Black Dahlia Murder guest on the album was always going to turn a lot of heads for all the rights reasons as the man is now somewhat reviewed by the extreme metal scene as some amalgamation of pure liquid ecstasy with strips of bacon instead of legs wearing Ingested albums as mittens, so bonus points awarded.
I’m trying to come up with original phrasings to explain why I like this album without resorting to run-of-the-mill buzzwords that every reviewer and their underarm hair expel when punched in the gut, but I confess I’m coming up short. While Revenant may not be the most original thing on the planet, it’s so well executed, brilliantly written and more to the point enjoyable that that point is moot. One must remember that a good jam tart is still a good jam tart without the addition of ferrer roche mousse as a palette cleanser. The things it’s pinched from other artists is done out of love and affection for the influence than out of lack of ideas, and it’s melded together in such a way that it stands out amongst the flappery of the genre, and weirdly in slight contradiction to my previous comments Revenant innovates in the way that these elements are combined rather than in what those elements actually are.
Revenant is a refreshing breath of guitar laden air but has all the comfort of a well worn in and well loved armchair complete with butt-grooves and empty crisp packets.
8/10
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