Some bands just get it right.
Inter Arma have been building towards a wonderful record and this most definitely is it.
It’s bleak and it’s beautiful. At turns joyously uplifting, at others crushingly heavy. I’m fucking enchanted.
Black metal and Pink Floyd are stirred in equal parts through soaring psychedelic sludge to create something unique and utterly compelling.
Are these your balls sir?
Inter Arma are the best band you’ve never heard. Debut Sundown snuck up on me and wrapped a tire iron around my head to snaffle third spot in my 2010 end of year list with its amalgam of black metal, sludge and NWOBHM.
Typically when I fall in love a record, any follow-up will struggle fill its shoes.
On their Relapse Records debut EP, Inter Arma do more than buck that trend, they torpedo that motherfucker out of the water.
Inter Arma - Sundown. You need to listen to this.
No gold, sadly. Tragedy were just too thin-sounding for my taste. That’s a problem I have with a lot of hardcore. There’s buckets of aggression and speed but the guitars lack the heft of metal and leave me cold.
I guess that’s why I am quite partial to sludge due to its fusion of hardcore/crust with the supremely thick tones of Sabbath-worshipping doom.
Monkey Defies Gravity 