(In this post NCS writer DGR reviews the new album by Inferi.)

Inferi are a band who I’ve had every intention of talking about for a very, very long time but never had the perfect moment to do so. The Nashville, Tennessee based group play a style of metal that can rotate between technical death metal, melodic death, and epic-fueled thrash metal at the drop of a hat. They have always seemed to be defined by two things for me: The sort of insane ambition of a band who cut absolutely no corners and make absolutely no compromises; and the sort of high-speed energy equivalent of a spark landing on a trail of gunpowder, rapidly accelerating and heating into a massive explosion.

The group have been fighting it out as something of a working band’s band for the better part of seven years, and as of late January they have finally put out another disc — five years after their last one — entitled The Path Of Apotheosis. It was a long time coming, and so massive in scope and scale that it is hard to believe it came from a group scratching it out day-by-day in the underground. There is a reason why it has taken me longer than two weeks to review this album, because holy hell, is this thing a packed disc. I can say right away that if you’re a bang-for-your-buck person, you can probably understand my yammering, because wow, is there a lot here.

Yet, with five years and finally some momentum behind them, do Inferi get to take advantage of their moment in history? Does the massive wall of sound and scale that the band put forward actually become anything other than grandeur for grandeur’s sake? Continue reading »