Band:	Nameless Infinity
Album:	Remnant
Style:	Industrial metal
Release date:	January 10, 2025
A review by:	musclassia

01. Pain Addiction
02. The Watchers
03. Forsaken Species
04. Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAO)
05. Welcome The Void
06. The Ouroboros
07. Inspiral

It’s intriguing to ponder on the concept of remnants within infinity; when infinities can be larger than other infinities, conceivably the remnant of an infinity could itself be infinite. For example, this Remnant is a Nameless Infinity.

This is the debut album from the German one-man project driven by vocalist and composer Feynman, who continues his collaboration with Metren Angerjärv (Dreadrealm) as producer following last year’s Grave Of The Universe EP. The use of ‘composer’ in that last sentence is intentional, as the instrumentation on Remnant is programmed; however, good-quality VSTs have evidently been used, as the album is rendered with a relatively full and deep metallic sound that effectively realizes the vision of Nameless Infinity.

While there are recognizable guitar layers (frequently in tremolo style) within these songs, the nature of programmed guitar tone, in addition to other synth layers, does render Nameless Infinity’s sound suited to a more industrial take on metal, and industrial metal does feel like the most apt categorization for Remnant. This is not just due to the tonality, but also the cold, repetitive feel of some riffs, as demonstrated clearly in the grim, relentless opener “Pain Addiction”, during which throbbing electronic blasts and tremolo riffs reveal themselves above a persistent up-tempo percussion rhythm. This use of tremolo riffing, in tandem with the cold atmosphere and the sickly, gargled vocal rasps utilized across the album, add a clear blackened element to Remnant, although the instrumentation overall veers away from black metal to the extent that I wouldn’t call the album industrial black metal.

“Pain Addiction” is a fairly memorable opening to Remnant; certainly, it’s the track that’s most stuck in my head after listens to the album. It’s also one of the songs where the particular vocal style employed on the album feels most fitting; the vocals in general might be a point of division for listeners. While performed well for the style, this particularly sickening type of black metal vocal isn’t quite to my tastes; additionally, it’s the kind of approach that feels more suited to harsher, rawer and more intense black metal (which again is often less to my taste). That means that it feels most natural when appearing on faster, louder and more aggressive tracks such as “Pain Addiction” and “Forsaken Species”, rather than when accompanying slower, less dense and more ponderous songs like “The Watchers” and “The Ouroboros”.

I’d perhaps also say that the more intense approach overall better fits Nameless Infinity’s sound; the high-speed onslaught of morphing and overlapping riffs in the middle and latter stages of “Forsaken Species” is one of the most effective portions of the album for me. That’s not to say that the album doesn’t work at all at slower speeds; there’s a dingy grimness to some of the churning doom parts in the earlier stages of “Inspiral” (mainly around the 2-minute mark) that I also find myself vibing with. I do find those moments too infrequent for my liking on the album, however; other slower parts on the album opt for thinner instrumental textures, and they don’t really work in the same way. Given the nature through which these songs are being produced, I would prefer for Nameless Infinity to more liberally make use of the most effective tools available, which here are the thick, churning and more emphatic instrumental sounds.

Beyond that, there are other areas with room for improvement for Nameless Infinity. The songs here are generally on the longer side (most around or above 5 minutes, save the interlude track “Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAO)”), but the component ideas underlying them in a few cases either aren’t strong enough to grab the listener’s attention, or are repeated too much without evolving in a way that retains interest; “The Watchers” and its 9 minutes unfortunately encounters both issues. The initial thick churn in the opening seconds sets a promising platform, and for the first minute or two, the brooding, doomy riffs and the evolving accompanying percussion continue to work, but my attention does start to waver over the following minutes. More of an issue for me, however, is the minute-long bass solo that comes in around the 5-minute mark, which never really comes to life and probably could have been cut altogether.

Still, while Nameless Infinity has work to do to become the finished article, there are signs of early promise; at different points, Remnant delivers memorable riffs (“Pain Addiction”) and bleak atmosphere (“Welcome The Void”), and the drum programming is generally adept in a way that contributes positively to the compositions. With time and experience, this project could quite easily take positive steps forward from this initial foundation.