Regression to Nothingness

With only two full-length albums released before their untimely demise, French doom-metallers from Inborn Suffering nonetheless managed to get a semblance of international recognition. A well-deserved recognition, judging from their short legacy, which makes one only regret they couldn’t eventually find a way to unleash the full potential of their talent, for they seemingly had much left to say. While Wordless Hope, their debut, was essentially an early Draconian rip-off with an additional French touch, Regression to Nothingness, their second and unfortunately last, showed a clear intent at stepping away from servile imitation to propose a notably more personal, heavier sound.

Yes, Inborn Suffering was getting serious, there. Time to mostly forget about the violin, grand piano, flutes, and occasional clean or female vocals; in other words, time to forget about anything which made the debut album somehow soft, save for a discrete background keyboard, and to prepare for one hour and twelve minutes of crushing atmospheric death/doom metal. You read well – one hour and twelve minutes for seven songs only, the purpose was clear. Too clear, perhaps. By trying a bit too hard to play the card of uncompromising slowness, length, and heaviness, against anything which could sound even remotely crowd-friendly, the risk of ending up with initially powerful, but eventually dull, songs, was real. The guys played, and won – most often.

Of course, starting with such intentions, you better make sure none of your riffs weights less than one thousand pounds. The minute the whole machine stops crushing, it gets boring. But six years after Wordless Hope, Inborn Suffering had matured enough to escape the trap. This album is a slow grower, starting with the mid-tempo, melodic Slumber Asylum, the song the most reminiscent of the debut, hence perhaps the least surprising, before getting full force when chaining three mammoth tracks which, alone, would have been enough to make it worth spinning. BORN! GUIL! TY! roars the prophet, over a bare-bone one-note guitar riff and a feint, diffuse atmospheric keyboard. Now Humanity is doomed, and from there it will only get worse. Grey Eden and Apotheosis are two numbers built on similar stop-and-go structures, alternating slow and fast parts in order to keep on accumulating momentum, up to their final explosion. The title track goes the opposite way; after a climax which, for the first time, fugitively brings back the piano, it just goes slower. And slower. And slower. Until the exhausted listener just can sigh: genius.

A radical switch in mood, then, compared to the debut, to the point it sometimes sounds like it’s another band playing. The fact the vocalist has changed isn’t anecdotal. Ever-growling, much more low-pitched, brutal, bestial than his predecessor, regularly indulging into short disillusioned spoken parts which, far from bringing any relief, only add to the general despair, the man may well be the main driving force here. The guitars, in contrast, sound at first somehow wiser, remaining faithful to the atmospheric gothic/doom sound popularized by the band’s initial sources of inspiration, that is, Draconian, Swallow the Sun and their ilk: slow, thick leitmotivs regularly topped by howling leads, with the mandatory occasional crystalline clear intros or breaks. However, by making the whole sound slower, thicker, more distorted, Inborn Suffering manages to render this old formula fresh enough, or at least perfectly suitable to what they wanted to express, that is, there’s no hope, anywhere. The drums don’t demerit, either – mostly remarkable for their dry, organic snare regularly slapping like a whip, they work as the perfect complement to the band’s deconstruction agenda. They’ll leave nothing, remember.

Still – going back to the culinary metaphor we once pulled out about Wordless Hope, let’s admit that, this time, the meal is a tad too heavy to fully digest. While in its – numerous – moments of grandeur, Regression to Nothingness tops anything from its predecessor, over the long run, the exercise becomes tiresome. Not that it would feature any intrinsically bad song; only, several of these sound artificially extended through useless excrescences, for the sake of, once again, looking serious. Even one of the best tracks like Grey Eden could have easily lived without some of its too many spoken parts. As if, brilliantly escaping the clichés from gothic/doom metal that sometimes plagued the debut, Inborn Suffering almost fell into another cliché of the whole doom genre, that is, indulging in length for the sake of length. A minor issue, perhaps, which isn’t enough to break the carefully built suffocating atmosphere; still, an album which cannot be listened to with sustained attention over a single session couldn’t pretend to perfection.

This small reproach shouldn’t minimize the performance from Inborn Suffering, who at least managed to bring a semblance of credibility to the French gothic/death/doom metal scene in a time that one basically had no visibility, even in its own country. It’s just a pity they disappeared so fast – before, in fact, said scene could achieve full visibility.

Highlights: Born Guilty, Grey Eden, Apotheosis, Regression to Nothingness

Imagine, you return home after tiring day. School, then work, problems everywhere, nobody helps you, everybody turns their backs on you.. And are mad at the world. In the evening you turn on iPod to listen to the new album by Inborn Suffering. And after album ended, you no longer feel rage, you feel how higher you stand above all that 'walking corpses' in your life and just don't care about them. They don't spoil your mood anymore. I just described my first meeting with this album.

France is the country with enormous amount of metal bands, but they are mainly working in black metal, for example Deathspell Omega, Blut aus Nord, Peste Noire and etc. I've been listening to doom metal since I was 11 years old and I've met no decent doom metal bands from France so far. If there was one, it was nothing special, just mediocre, Swallow the Sun/My Dying Bride imitation. It's just deadly sin to say same about Inborn Suffering. As soon as the first track in this album, 'Slumber Asylum' did end, I became instant fan.

I can't find any defect for this album, it's just perfect in every view or every meaning of this word. Every instrument works perfectly to fulfill the void of human soul. Guitar riffs are just exquisite. I feel a little influences by My Dying Bride here, but it is too slight to be thought about it. Guitarists seem like they aren't satisfied with only one genre. Many songs here can be classified in funeral death/doom metal. Guitars are distorted heavily enough and so are the vocals. Also vocals are the ones, which highlight this album. Along with growls, you can hear spoken vocals and screams too. Screams like that I have often met in songs by Lifelover or Hypothermia. They fit DSBM great, but death/doom is the genre they fit perfectly. I have never heard screams like this in any other doom metal bands before. Now about spoken vocals. They sound as if the come from underworld. They remind me Doom:VS a little.

Drums surprised me most. I've heard powerful drumming with ultra-fast double-basses in melodic death metal, but to hear them in death/doom metal was big surprise to me. And the magic is that this ultra-fast and ultra-brutal drumming not only doesn't spoil the slow and painful origin of this genre, they make it sound even better. Drummer strains all the emotions when he hits his pedals slowly, and after this, when he does it rapidly, these emotions are like unleashed anger. And, afterwards it feels like I'm released from the anger and shame and I breathe open air freely again.

I also love the way of songwriting in this album. I already mentioned that many songs sometime move into funeral doom metal. Also I must mention the length of the songs. Most of them last about 10 minutes or more. My favorite track here is 'Apotheosis'. It has epic intro and many haunting catchy riffs, which sound along with epic 'double-bass based' drumming and hellish vocals. I feel myself in convulsion while listening. just epic!

2012 was great year for doom metal. Many good albums saw the light that year. We had epic releases by My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Anathema, Swallow the Sun, Funeral, Evadne and etc. But none of them impressed me like 'Regression to Nothingness' did. I name this album as the album of the year and I'm sure, many people will agree, because once you have listen to this album, you go closer to perfectness and feel value of this work. It's too sad that the band decided to split up, but I still hope that one day they'll get back together and give us wonder-album again.

The slow paced drumming that walks side by side with the sound of the warm guitars is the best metal genre that can satisfy my ears in the winter, especially the music that the amazing band "Inborn Suffering" can create. After the releasing of the successful album "Wordless Hope" I've waited the second full-length on fire, and I am pretty happy about the result, the new album contains so much warmth and grandness in the songwriting.

This week I've read the latest news for the band, and I really had a bad feeling when my eyes hit the news of the disbanding, because I guess the album "Regression to Nothingness" is still virgin and it still needs more and more promotion. Solitude Productions, the high-quality doom metal label has managed to release the latest album for Inborn Suffering to be the top of its releases, so If you think the winter is missing something, then you have to buy this copy now and start enjoying every single moment with this album.

The music of this album have the same heat of the previous full-length, but the new structure of the tracks are stronger and stable; the sound of the guitars are now firm enough to cover all the space in the overall sound. The drumming is so much better and the fillings have really caught my attention, especially in the tracks "Slumber Asylum" and "Grey Eden". The sound of the bass is mixed well to embrace the volcanic sound of the distortion guitars, and the clean guitar sections in the tracks "Regression to Nothingness" and "Born Guilty" have created a perfect atmosphere for all the people who adore the golden days of doom\death metal music.

The influences of the music are deeply located around the music of October Tide and the old Katatonia, and some Anathema's touches can be heard from time to time during the raging melodies of the guitars. The fans of funeral doom metal will also enjoy the elements of this album, because the structure of these tracks have slower tempos than the regular doom\death metal releases, but these slower tempos actually produced a very intelligent music for all the fans of doom metal music.

Overall, the music of this album is really interesting, and I didn't find any boring moments while listening to this album, so if you're searching for something to heat up your room, then you have to let your speakers breath the burning doom melodies of the guitars of this album. For the people who search for harsh riffs, please stay away from this album because Inborn Suffering only managed to create atmospheric doom/death metal pieces of pie.

Originally written for:
www.jorzine.com