Clinamen | Episteme

The truth is that avant – garde Black Metal is a genre that I was never very fond of. Such kind of Black Metal Inquisitor, the five member band from Lithuania which exists since 2002, play in here too and they have released two demos and two full length albums. Recently I received their second album which is called “Clinamen | Episteme” which contains six tracks and an overall duration of about forty five minutes. The first thing that impressed me was its very beautiful digipack edition. The cover has an allegoric, symbolic, grey – black very beautiful painting that puts you into the position to observe it and to discover what it wants to say. The band’s logo appears in the center of the painting. By opening the digipack, we get to hold the eight – page booklet with all the lyrics as also with zoomed images – parts of the painting of the cover. It is a really beautiful package, something that we don’t see very often for releases of underground bands and made me wonder why. Does the label supports and believe in them so much? What has the label seen into them? A lot of questions that didn’t take long to be answered by the time I put the cd into the cd player.

Already by the first few notes it seems that we are going to listen to an intelligent – artistic creation that it will surely be interesting. The music, as I mentioned above, is typical avant – garde with its original riffing, its weird passages and its technical changes. The riffs have a characteristic high-pitched sound, they are full of sentiments in every form that they take, namely both into the brutal, obscure hyper – speed parts, both into the slow melancholic and into the more epic, majestic ones. The band let the listener discover also some others of their influences such as Katatonia that in some parts make their discreet appearance, as also quite a lot of progressive elements that many times they rule into the composition. In an overall aspect, the album makes you feel intense feelings and creates images, while it has a really elitist – artistic, something that rarely is realised with success and here it is realized and I like it a lot. The tracks are long, regarding their duration (from seven to nine minutes) and quite fulfilling. The good job that they have done for the compositions, the many and beautiful changes but also the highly emotional, with a lot of images journey that they offer, they retain the interest of the listener to a high level throughout the entire album.

Concerning the instruments, the band shows that it is formed by high level musicians. The guitars are technical, with clean sound, played with power, flawless technic and much feeling. The bass is also very technical, with beautiful lines it fills the sound perfectly. The piano is the instrument that takes the compositions to a higher level. It makes its appearance into the medium and the slow speed parts and it adds to the music that elitist – artistic style that I mentioned before. Moreover it helps the feelings become more dramatic and intense. The drums have interesting lines, technical turnings, solid blastbits and beautiful changes. What they have achieved is that while they have very beautiful lines, they don’t steal the attention of the listener from the first instruments (guitars and piano). The vocals are harsh, monotonous Black Metal vocals that in some parts thay become clear and melancholic. The vocals with their changes and their expression, they complete the very good level of musicians of the album. The production is absolutely clean while the mixture is balanced, it tries and achieves to highlight every instrument as much as it should and when it should without ruining the balance. Finally, the lyrics are written in English and they follow that artistic, intelligent character of the band, as they put the listener into the position to think and to discover what they could possibly mean(for each it is something different).

As you understand, Inquisitor achieve with their intelligent, sophisticated, technical, full of feelings and images Black Metal they create a very interesting album which can offer a lot to the listener. Surely this band deserve your attention and support. The cd is released into just 500 copies. Buy it.