Inter Arma are a post-metal band from the US and this is their fifth album.
Inter Arma are not your average band. They contort and shapeshift from one track to the next – from one part of a song to the next – delivering a multifaceted metallic journey through all kinds of different styles and genres, including doom, death metal, black metal, sludge, and more, all wrapped up in a progressive/post-metal bow that’s just wonderfully realised.
10 years ago The Cavern became my album of the year, and is still one of the finest examples of long-form songwriting and execution to this day. After this the band released 2016’s Paradise Gallows, (mentioned, but unranked that year, although in retrospect it should have been), and 2019’s Sulphur English, (ranked 13 that year). Yep, expectations are high for Inter Arma’s new work.
Now, after the longest gap between releases, New Heaven provides us with an unexpectedly brief, (for Inter Arma), 42 minutes of new material – it’s actually shorter than The Cavern, which is rather ridiculously considered an EP, (it felt strange at the time, but feels even stranger now). Still, with music this good, the band can call their releases whatever they like.
New Heaven is Inter Arma at their most remorseless and merciless. No strangers to darkness, Inter Arma have journeyed deeper into the shadows for this album. These new songs are devastating, both in sonic heaviness and emotional weight. Harsh brutality and unflinching violence are what you should expect here, all edged with bleak despairing reality, but with the occasional glimpse of flawed beauty. There is less doom and sludge on New Heaven, and far more AARRRRGGHHHH!
New Heaven is inaccessible, and takes counsel only from itself. It’s a microcosm of individuality in a sea of generic hordes, and gets away with being so idiosyncratic simply because of how damn good it is. Whether presenting as dissonant nightmare, angular complexity, brutal death metal aggression, blackened fury, or harrowing atmosphere, (or anything else), New Heaven stands tall as an album that you’re unlikely to forget any time soon.
As with anything with this band’s name on it though, it’s far from a one-dimensional affair. Always varied and nuanced, you never know quite what to expect with any given Inter Arma song. In this regard, New Heaven is simultaneously no different, and yet also very different. The band have pushed themselves, producing songs that are recognisably a product of the their past, yet that also embrace new aspects. These are quickly absorbed into their whole, so much that they could have always been there.
As the album progresses the aggressive tendencies slowly give way to a wider sonic palette, culminating in the closing acoustic track. Ending the album in a completely different place to where it started, it’s testament to Inter Arma’s abilities that they can do this so skilfully.
New Heaven is a maddening psychedelic journey into darkness. There are very few bands out there who are walking their own path as fiercely as this, and Inter Arma continue to be one of those rare bands that are basically their own entity.
What more can I say? If you like unfriendly extreme metal that’s challenging and rewarding, then this is an essential listen for you.