Metal Album of the Week: Inter Arma – The Cavern
Congratulations, you’ve stumbled into a weekly column where Simon, our station’s resident metal-head, tells you about a new metal album that you haven’t heard and why that needs to change as soon as possible. Bask in the glory of the riffs, dear reader!
It’s only the third week of writing this column and, as we dive deeper into the metal-album release seasons of fall and winter, it’s getting harder to pick a winner each week! Of course, too much awesome music is a much better problem than too much shitty music, so I won’t rant or anything. Honorable mentions must be given to Horrendous, Revocation, Kayo Dot, and Necrowretch, all extremely different yet very solid albums that came out this week. But who am I kidding? This ain’t elementary school and not everyone gets a participation trophy; we’re here to pick a winner! This week’s Metal Album of The Week goes to Inter Arma’s kickass new album, The Cavern.
It’s impossible to define Inter Arma by one genre. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to name one, I’d probably spit out something along the lines of blackened-sludge-post-stoner-atmospheric-psychedelic-doom-metal. Of course, you would then call me both an asshole and a nerd and promptly blow my brains out. Who needs silly categories? Inter Arma plays a unique brand of metal. In contrast to many bands’ use of melodic passages to contrast with their heaviness, Inter Arma brings it all together into one. The Cavern has a thick and heavy atmospheric element that, in no small part due to its stellar production, unifies the whole album into a single thematic experience. In fact, that’s exactly what it is, because The Cavern isn’t a traditional album: it consists of just one, forty-five minute long song.
If you’ve heard of Inter Arma before, it’s because their 2013 release Sky Burial was extremely solid. The Cavern is truly a progression in their sound. The production is more expansive, the riffs have gotten heavier, and their songwriting is unbelievable. This isn’t several songs combined into one track, but rather one full song with many different movements, as well as a central theme to which it returns. It even has a couple guitar solos that not only rip, but also have a killer tone and really fit the song (not just for the sake of noodling). You’d be making a mistake not checking out a killer album here; it could definitely end up on a lot of year-end top ten lists. Metal-head or otherwise, it’s worth checking out.
-Simon SV