With Inferion, I think I have found my new extreme metal obsession. From the first few notes of "It Began With Blood" I was excited. I loved it. I loved all the songs on Inferion's "The Desolate." It's dark, full of creepy terror, and has classic sounding black metal, with amazing extreme vocals. They bring to mind the very talented Cradle of Filth, but Inferion has a more rough, less gothy sound. They're more like if you took away the theatrics, the keyboards, and some of the production of CoF. Very good, I must say. If you like your extreme metal dirty, and rough around the edges, this is a band to listen to.
Inferion are decadently dark, with spookyness sprinkled in like poisonous sugar crystals on an evil cupcake. The guitarwork is exceptional, not just churning out the same riffs over and over, like some extreme bands, song after song, but actually holding their own very well. The drumming stood out as well. I will admit, I am SUPER picky when it comes to drumming. It's so common in extreme metal to have a flat, dull, thudding noise in the background be all you can hear instead of a heavy, driving beat anchoring the sound to a base, and I can't stand it. But Inferion's drummer does his job quite nicely. The double bass is very good, complimenting the furiously fast riffs, and growling vocals wonderfully.
Key tracks that stood out were "It Began With Blood" and "Numerous Lacerations." The latter is a beautiful, sweeping guitar solo. It diverged from the rest of the record, but only enhanced the album as a whole, offering a lighter, but no less great, side to the listener. It finishes with an eerie static-y silnence, an uneasy breather, before driving straight into "Purest Evil." The guitars on "Underlife" and "Withering Dieties" are worth mentioning too, as they are centerpiece, and rightly so, for they steal the attention with the grandiose solo in the middle of both tracks.
I really liked the layered vocals of Inferion also. With a deep growl on top of a medium, higher growl, you can still understand what they're saying, but it still has that evil sounding, raspy crunch that's penicle for any extreme metal band's vocalist. In a world of look-at-me-I'm-so-evil-and-hardcore, Inferion not only stomps down any other bands in their league, but violently commands listeners to pay attention.
As I was listening to this, my friend commented that "The Desolate" sounded like, "music to kill people to." Interesting speculation, but I took it as a good thing, because isn't that what extreme metal is all about when you get right down to it? Music to let out that hatred and anger towards people that when you see them you wish murder was legalized for just five munites? Yes, sir, it is! And really, would we like it any other way? I wouldn't, not at all.
Anyway, back to the point, Inferion is a fantastic band, and "The Desolate" is an album worth listening to over and over and over again. 5 stars, all the way.
--Gorgeous Nightmare
