Description

As a completely self-sufficient genre of music, black metal has twisted and turned itself into a myriad of shapes and forms. Having been appropriated by a secular, non-traditional generation and focused through a multitude of lenses, it is both refreshing and (un)life-affirming to behold the bands still willing to raise the fist of Satan. Inquisition, that duo from Columbia who transplanted long ago to the United States, returned in 2016 with their seventh full length album. A band known for spontaneous, over-the-top bursts of black metal terror amid slow hypnotic tones, and one of occult metal’s more inhuman vocalists in Dagon, they have actually been around as long as, if not longer, than most of black metal’s originators. With an album title reaching Bal-Sagoth-ian proportions of wordiness, does the music contained within their new opus suffer from a stall in inspiration, or does the black flame burn ever hotter as time goes by? Bloodshed . . . begins just as their last one ended. An off-putting intro sets the mood with a bit more gravitas than the campy movie samples of yore, much as those were endearing. “From Chaos They Came” erupts out of the speakers, the astute listener once more marvelling that the racket only comes from two dudes and not four or five, or at least three. And yet it is paint-by-numbers for this band. Is it tight, aggressive and good? Sure, but is it a special tune or a step forward? No. But despair not. Excitement is born aloft soon after by nothing other than the “Wings of Anu.” Inquisition fires on healthy cylinders when they contrast blasting sections with mid-paced, head-nodding passages of double-bass attack. Along with a brutal little snarl of a chorus (Wings of Anuuuuu), this song is that delicious burst of elitism and technical fury fans of the band have come to love. When spinning this album, there come times where you wonder if they’re spinning their wheels a bit, but on some of the songs a few listens reveal that there’s something going on that sets the album apart from their last one. Take “The Flames of Infinite Blackness Before Creation,” which plods along at a slower pace until Dagon’s leads and the strummed phrasing in the background serve to hypnotize, not bore. As one would expect, the song writing going on in Inquisition is evolving with time. In the past, the contrast of speed and slowness was a bit more black-and-white. This made for some immediate impact, but a song like this one truly gets under the skin. Instead of stabbing right through the flesh, it leaches its way in a bit more slowly. The riffing towards the end is as mystical and occult as the iciest of Norse black metal guitars can get. Album number seven sees Inquisition both pushing for new horizons while also showing signs of growing a bit too comfortable with their own formula. Trim some of the fat and this would be a goddamn masterpiece. That being said, its still among the more well-rounded and solid pieces of black metal art battering eardrums today.

Track list:
1. Intro: The Force Before Darkness
2. From Chaos They Came
3. Wings of Anu
4. Vortex From the Celestial Flying Throne of Storms
5. A Black Aeon Shall Cleanse
6. The Flames of Infinite Blackness Before Creation
7. Mystical Blood
8. Through the Divine Spirit of Satan a Glorious Universe Is Known
9. Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith
10. Power From the Center of the Cosmic Black Spiral
11. A Magnificent Crypt of Stars
12. Outro: The Invocation of the Absolute, the All, the Satan
13. Coda: Hymn to the Cosmic Zenith