INTER ARMA – Sulphur English

31.50 

Includes Digital Download

Format: 2 x 12″ LP
Catalogue No: RR-7410
Label: Relapse Records
Price: 31.50 €

Richmond’s INTER ARMA, reigning masters of the slow build, continue to trace a distinctly ambitious trajectory through modern metal. Their impulses tend toward the epic, but never bloat; they meld several styles — doom, sludge, and hard psych — without coming off like dilettantes. This newest full-length, Sulphur English, finds them mining deeper in the proggy organic doom fields that made both Paradise Gallows and Sky Burial so thrilling while expanding further the on the psych-folk strain that made those albums’ peaks seem so lofty. Few metal bands have ever made such effective use of acoustic instruments in truly heavy environments as INTER ARMA do; the acoustic guitar that stitches «Stillness» together is as effective as any overdriven bass; a two-minute gloomy piano-and-feedback piece titled «Observances of the Path» rolls out the carpet for «The Atavist’s Meridian,» an album highlight that rides a gigantic, roomy drum sound into realms akin to a murkier Paradise Lost, a more aggressive Om, and a dreamier, more stoned Kylesa all playing together at once. Few bands make music as engrossing as INTER ARMA; their lengthy, almost meditative songs rumble patiently forward until you’re ready to get thrown off a bridge — and then they throw you, with great force. – Words by John Darnielle

Tracklisting

A1 Bumgardner
A2 A Waxen Sea
A3 Citadel
B1 Howling Lands
B2 Stillness
C1 Observances Of The Path
C2 The Atavist's Meridian
D1 Blood On The Lupines
D2 Sulphur English