Interplanar Decimation

I've been listening to heavy metal since the eighties and extreme metal music music for twenty years, and certain records were too much for me when I first heard them. But as I spent time with Symphonies of Sickness, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren Ka, Black Force Domain, Axis of Advance/Conqueror/Revenge, Panzer Division Marduk, World Downfall, Grind Virus, Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis, etc., I learned to appreciate and embrace what was going on, and my tastes developed to include music at a new level of extremity. Eventually, with albums like these, I enjoyed ... and I understood.

Such understanding will never come to me regarding the sonic insanity that is Interplanar Decimation, by the Brazilian band Infested Blood.

There is a real reason for this. For the major part of this twenty-eight minute album Infested Blood DOES NOT PLAY IN A TIME SIGNATURE. I'm not saying they change the meter a lot---a hundred wanker tech bands I dislike do that---I am saying that for most of this punishing album, THERE IS NO METER. You cannot count the beats or even the time changes, because there is no beat underneath this whirling assault for you to count. They are bananas.

Interplanar Assault is a fast and frantic event of syncopation, airborne riffs and mania. Shit just happens all over the place, loudly and angrily, and you can't stop it. Irregular riff fragments and long, winding hooks fly into the vacuum and the drummer accents things---lots of things, since ALMOST ALL OF THE ALBUM IS ACCENTS. While this alien (or telepathic?) shredding and pummeling occurs, some guy gurgles and grunts whenever the hell wants to. Why not?

So the reason I will only give this wild and brutal release an above-average recommendation is that it is a thing to witness and marvel at--truly--but it is such an unrelenting assault, such a maniacal beatdownclusterfuck, that I doubt I will ever really enjoy it. And since it is ten-to-the-tenth-power of too much, it gets a bit monotonous after about four songs of chopped riffs, pounding accents and velocity cranking: Rarely does the listener get much in the way of culmination moments or gratification.

Interplanar Decimation is extreme by even the most extreme standards, a punishing, jackhammer assault in 360 degrees that shows that the members of Infested Blood have a shared madness...

I really didn’t like Infested Blood’s previous album Tribute to apocalypse, and I believe I referred to it as “decent suckiness”. And so I wasn’t exactly eager to hear the follow-up, last year’s Interplanar decimation. Although I had read it to be much better than its predecessor I still couldn’t be convinced to even remotely look forward to another go with this Brazilian act. But not only have they fully plunged into sci-fi themes, and left the gory glory behind, they’ve really grown into a force to be reckoned with.

While the production isn’t top notch it’s without a doubt acceptable in means of letting the music show off its qualities. Riff-wise it’s all out technical, and you’ll be hard up trying to spot five seconds that doesn’t have at least one riff variation or tempo change. There are tons of tempo changes, often in a frantic stop and go action that gives the tunes a sense of desperation, in lack of a better word. If the riffing was an entity it would be a truly tormented one, desperately trying to break out into full blown chaos and engulf the world in flaming turmoil. As far as the drumming goes it’s a nonstop, full on stampede of blast beats, but still with a buttload of tempo changes and varying drum patterns. And as the drummer’s busy with blasting, the riffs on the other hand can take on an entirely different tempo. Sure, it’s fast and technical, but set in a more chugging pace instead of the frenzied one the drums take on. But during most of the breaks (one can’t call it breakdowns, seeing as it’s only half a second long most of the time) the guitar and drums meet for a short visit before it takes off again.

It winds up somewhere in between Deeds of Flesh, Decapitation and Origin, but with a slightly harsher and more brutal approach giving it a hint of Amputated Genitals as well as Visceral Bleeding and such similar acts. But not only the music carry those ultra-brutal tendencies, but the vocals as well. The deep, gory and grunting growls are far from the ordinary growls you’ll find in death metal, but that of the most brutal variant. I gotta say, Infested Blood took me completely by surprise here. This tight and technical execution has definitely set them down the right path.

Originally written for http://www.mylastchapter.net