Band:	Human Serpent
Album:	Inhumane Minimalism
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	June 25, 2015
A review by:	nikarg

01. The World In Coffins
02. Messiah For Parasites
03. Trees Of Flesh
04. Starving Void Upon Earth
05. Decay
06. Bottomless Fall
07. Funeral Grimness
08. The Lament
09. Mother Of Depression

Since their formation in 2013 and by early 2015, Human Serpent managed to release a demo, take part in two split albums and present a full-length debut record that took the black metal underground by surprise. In the summer of 2015 the band dropped their second studio offering, Inhumane Minimalism, which ripped the guts out of the aforementioned black metal underground and compelled the doubters to tip their hat to the new ambassadors of hatred against mass subculture.

Inhumane Minimalism begins with "The World In Coffins", in other words the perfect black metal song and the way every metal record should open; no lengthy intros, no useless and time-consuming weak parts, just a merciless hammering without end. Everything noteworthy from The Gradual Immersion In Nihilism is here, but served in an even more convincing way. The high-speed riffing is very inspired and slightly more melodic, the pace changes more frequently in order to include some atmospheric, but still sinister, parts and the drumming is simply ruthless, in a way that pierces the skull with every beating.

The vocals, which were a highlight in their debut, are now completely inhuman and X. sounds more angry and soulful than ever before. His long and desperate screams are of a man who is fighting for his life. The ending of "Messiah For Parasites", for example, has one of the most tormenting vocal performances I have heard in a very long time. The hateful lyrics are expressed in the most primitively violent way possible, dragging the listener deeper into an inescapable abyss of negativity.

The final result benefits from a production that enhances the decay and raw energy that pours out from every anguished shriek, every grim riff, every demonic blastbeat. The band is performing with soaring passion in a sophomore album that finds them more mature in their songwriting, but without compromising one bit. The term "mature" usually means "selling out", but in Human Serpent's case such a statement couldn't be more inaccurate. The band remains repulsed by anything conventional, letting again all hell to break loose and being proud representatives of pure, old-school black metal. Not avant-garde, post-, atmospheric or melodic, but misanthropic, nihilistic, trve and cvlt.

Human Serpent's favourite expression is "Against the modern world". They revolt against the humanity that can't comprehend its worth and role in the natural chain or put a stop in its growing inclination to eliminate rather than to create. The "Human Serpent" is the pitiful being that is currently flirting with self-destruction, poisoning its environment and slithering like a snake (based on an interview of the band).

"Through the years of sorrow
inside the Mother of Depression
I don't want to follow
life-portraits of oppression"