By: Mark Ambrose
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 12/04/2019
Label: Relapse Records
The triple guitar attacks, rippling blast beats, and ambient drones
may make your skin crawl one moment, before taking your breath away with a
moment of acoustic beauty. If there’s a
record coming this year that can outdo this one, I’m more than happy to
listen. But for now, Inter Arma stands
head and shoulders above the rest
“Sulphur
English” CD//DD//2LPTrack listing
1). Bumgardner
2). A Waxen Sea
3). Citadel
4). Howling Lands
5). Stillness
6). Observances of the Path
7). The Atavist’s Meridien
8). Blood on the Lupines
9). Sulphur English
The Review:
To call Inter Arma one of the
standout groups in current metal feels like an understatement: while they’ve been a solid doomy/sludgy/deathy
collective since their debut, “Sundown”, their releases with Relapse Records, starting with 2013’s “Sky Burial”, have been
increasingly complex, challenging, and moving. Their latest, “Sulphur
English”, is yet another high water mark and an early contender for
“year’s best”.
Like the best metal “intro” tracks, “Bumgardner” is atmospheric and
pummeling leadup to the chaos and violence to follow. The rolling drumbeats and mounting static
lead right into the gargantuan central riff of “A Waxen Sea”. You might
imagine, with the churning, tidal instrumentation pervading the track, the
lyrics would be sheer nihilism, but Inter Arma is a group
that effortlessly embraces the terrifying and the sublime. Some of the lyrics here are practically
Wordsworthian: “The morning rises
guardedly / Over a stirring countryside / Illuminating the far off sea. / A
waxen shield, horizon’s protector.”
It isn’t so much pretty, as it is fundamentally stirring.
“Citadel” turns
toward grimness and decay, referring to the seasons spoiling, wounds “of
corporeal and psychic root” that hold the narrator captive. But Inter Arma keeps
turning away from the metallic tropes of abject misery – while there is strife,
lead singer Mike Paparo intones that, “A fire burns deep in the citadel of my
heart”. Meanwhile, Steven Russell and Trey Dalton swap some of the most
face-melting guitar leads and menacing harmonies this side of a Morbid Angel record.
It’s hard not to dissect each song at length –
“Howling Lands” is like a death rock
dirge crossed with a tribal war dance, highlighting the muscular power that
drummer/multi-instrumentalist TJ Childers brings to the band. Plus, between “Howling Lands” and “Stillness”, Paparo pulls off a
convincing gothic baritone that occasionally sounds like Danzig at his sweaty,
howling best.
“Observances of the Path”
serves as an interlude from the folk-metal hymnal of “Stillness” to the complex, polyrhythmic cacophony of “The Atavist’s Meridian”. For nearly half the song’s twelve minutes, it
builds in tension, never approaching a major key or melodic reprieve. A mid-song interlude lulls the listener into
a false sense of security, interspersing quieter, looser guitar picking with
spoken word snippets, before gradually building to a violent climax that sounds
like Childers is pummeling every drum in the western hemisphere. I heard this track while driving through
catastrophic rain and it was one of the most distressing, terrifying, and
exhilarating listens I’ve had in a while – sometimes things just line up
perfectly.
“Blood on the Lupines”
may be the most “doom” track on the record, at least in terms of tempo and
scorching, filthy bass tone courtesy of Joe Kerkes. But the psychedelic guitar tones occasionally
evoke Pink Floyd and early King Crimson. Paparo dips into his baritone (now more Peter
Steele than Glenn), but still howls and shrieks like he’s possessed by some
primal, prehistoric spirit. Taken in
tandem with the closing title track, the demonic fury is a beautiful juxtaposition. “Sulphur English” closes like a
sermon, warning about the “corrupt tongue of imperious fools” and exhorting the
crowd to “beware the charlatan”. I’d be tempted to draw current political
analogies, but “Sulphur English’s themes echo through time, more Paleolithic
than Anthropocene.
The idea that these charlatans “in threads
woven in gilded opulence” seem to emerge in every era is just as haunting as
the propulsive, buzzing music that Inter Arma weaves
through the track, and the album itself.
The triple guitar attacks, rippling blast beats, and ambient drones may
make your skin crawl one moment, before taking your breath away with a moment
of acoustic beauty. “Sulphur
English” is a rare record that functions both as a showcase of eclectic
and skilled musicianship and a unified, brilliant tome best enjoyed in one
prolonged listen. If there’s a record
coming this year that can outdo it, I’m more than happy to listen. But for now, Inter Arma
stands head and shoulders above the rest.
“Sulphur English” is available HERE
