Band:	Inter Arma
Album:	New Heaven
Style:	Blackened sludge metal
Release date:	April 26, 2024
A review by:	nikarg

01. New Heaven
02. Violet Seizures
03. Desolation's Harp
04. Endless Grey
05. Gardens In The Dark
06. The Children The Bombs Overlooked
07. Concrete Cliffs
08. Forest Service Road Blues

When you get your hands on a new Inter Arma release, two things are certain: a) you don’t know what to expect, and b) you know it’s going to be good.

Both of the above apply to the band’s latest album, New Heaven, which comes five whole years after Sulphur English, and, if you have never come across them before, these guys mix death, black, sludge, and post-metal in a unique way that separates them from everything else you know. Still, with all their authenticity already praised in the past, New Heaven is probably the most experimental and bonkers Inter Arma album to date.

Even after the first four or five listens, I still felt that there remained a lot to unpack and discover. The title track, which opens the album, starts with two guitars fighting each other in some competition about which one can sound more disharmonic than the other. It sounds as if Imperial Triumphant, Gorguts, and Krallice decided to jam together. “Violet Seizures”, which follows, is living up to its title, and “Desolation’s Harp” continues with a blackened frenzy, but with a subtle guitar melody in the background, which makes way for some more prominent lead guitar work toward the end of the song; finally, there is something to latch onto after all the madness that came before, and it is a bit of a shock because these harmonies seem to come out of nowhere, since, up to that point, everything had been more or less dissonant. Closing side A, there is “Endless Grey”, which is an instrumental Pink Floyd-ish eargasm, rich in melody and atmosphere.

And this is where things take another unexpected turn.

The second half of New Heaven has almost nothing to do with the first. Starting with “Gardens In The Dark”, which is a meeting between Killing Joke, Type O Negative, and Nine Inch Nails, then moving on to “The Children The Bombs Overlooked” with the war drums, the spacey synths, and the Attila Csihar-like vocals, continuing with “Concrete Cliffs”, which is a jam of Pink Floyd with Godflesh, all sombre, heavy, atmospheric, and lush, and, finally, closing with "Forest Service Road Blues", a Neil Young-ish composition, all acoustic, a bit folk-ish, a bit country, and all-around dark and magnificent. If this isn’t a musical and emotional rollercoaster, I don’t know what is.

Music aside, the lyrics are pure poetic darkness, and they hit really hard. The production is spot on, with the drums and the vocals having the centre role, while the guitars come at you from different directions, and all the other noises and instruments take their deserved place without having to fight for it.

In this reviewer’s opinion, Inter Arma have a flawless and diverse discography. They are a difficult band to get into, but once you do understand them, you get hooked. To enter New Heaven specifically, you really have to struggle, because its entrance is the complete opposite of welcoming. Once you’re in, though, it’s impossible to not appreciate it.

“It gets colder quicker now
Up on that old mountain's brow
The sun don't shine like it used to
But it always comes down”