October 2022 - Feature Release - The Horde Edition

Another month flies by, which means it's time to select a new feature release for The Horde. As it's my turn to choose, I've selected Inanna's Void of Unending Depths album, which was released earlier this year. I've not heard any of the band's other albums yet, but this one has become a personal favourite of mine. It's everything I want a death metal album to be, so I hope you guys enjoy it too.

It would be great to read what you all think of it either below or in review format.

https://metal.academy/releases/37451

Great selection Ben. Here's my review:

My brother Ben can always be relied upon for quality feature releases & this brand new third album from Chilean death metallers Inanna is no exception as the band clearly possess a strong pedigree in all forms of deathly delights. “Void of Unending Depths” sees them tackling a number of different extreme metal subgenres & proving themselves to be proficient in all of them in the process. It’s quite a lengthy record for this style of music at nearly an hour in duration & I feel that it does overstay its welcome a touch but you can’t deny the quality that’s on offer.

The album begins in a very different way to what it finishes & opens with the strongest track on the tracklisting in dissonant death metal monster “Evolutionary Inversion” before “Among Subaqueous Spectres” sees them dipping their feet into more of a death/thrash sound which reminds me of US death metallers Serpens Aeon’s thrashier moments. The dissonant take on the classic death metal sound returns for “Far Away In Other Spheres” before the record starts to take a turn into increasingly more progressive territory for the remaining four tracks, the B side taking very much a progressive death metal direction in its entirety. I have to admit that the thrashier drumming doesn’t appeal to me as much as the darker death metal stuff & I think Inanna are probably at their best when they get their dissonant pants on.

The production job is very well suited to this style of music & does a good job at highlighting the dark atmosphere while the performances of the four instrumentalists are all high class. I particularly enjoy the use of blast beats but the highlights of the album tend to come through the sporadic incorporation of ethereal lead guitar melodies that remind me very much of Paradise Lost. It’s easy to pick up the influence of classic death metal bands like Immolation & Morbid Angel in the first half of the album while the commitment to progressive song structures & stylistic diversity is similar to that taken by South American counterparts The Chasm. Interestingly, I find the atmospheric interludes included in a few of the tracks to be inspired by Iron Maiden as much as anyone else (particularly the eerie mid-section of their classic “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”) but the last few tracks see the instrumentalists casting their creative inhibitions aside & tackling some highly technical riff structures. Front man Max Neira is an absolute beast with his super-deep yet still easily decipherable death growls providing another highlight for Inanna but unfortunately I find the higher pitched screams to sound a little immature in comparison.

“Void of Unending Depths” is a splendid example of the modern death metal sound & is very hard to fault. If anything, I’d suggest that Inanna may just be lacking a bit of focus as the record jumps around quite a bit & I tend to think that perhaps their next album might be the true culmination of their creative development once they firm up exactly what it is they’re trying to achieve. Regardless, there aren’t a lot of releases that can match Inanna for death metal integrity these days & I doubt there will be too many extreme metal fans out there that can’t get onboard with it.

For fans of The Chasm, Serpens Aeon & Morbid Angel.

4/5

I've been a big fan of this one since its release this year and when I first checked it out I thought that it was one of the best dissonant/more atmospheric Death Metal records I've heard. However, since going back to it every now and again for a total of 7-8 listens, I came to a similar conclusion as Daniel in that its a bit too unfocused for its own good. I'm a huge fan of "moments" in music, especially during longer albums with lengthy tracks, and Void of Unending Depths doesn't really deliver on that front despite being incredibly good everywhere else. It's still easily one of the best Death Metal records of 2022, but my own patience for it has waned over the course of a few months. 

It does make me want to go and check out their debut though, as that might have a bit more of what I'm looking for. This one started out as a 4.5/5 from me, but has since dropped. 

4/5

Okay so this is an album that I appreciate more than I flat out love. For starters, the technicality that is on display is robust and calculated; a place where much technical music loses me so much. Almost every piece of this record is included in order to compliment previous and future sections which allows even the albums longer tracks to feel cohesive instead of a hodgepodge of smaller ideas laced together to extend runtime.

That being said, it has already been pointed out by both Daniel and Xephyr that Void of Unending Depths can be too much of a good thing at times. Extended runtimes only intend to highlight how much weaker the slower and atmospheric tracks feel in comparison to "Mind Surgery", which is the albums best track. And the attempts to capture atmospherics as Blut Aus Nord did on Disharmonium earlier this year fall by the wayside very quickly. I would not even say that these tracks are bad; they just take me out of the experience when the technical death stuff is this good. Perhaps this is a backhanded compliment, but this record could have a stronger emphasis on the tech-death. As someone who does not partake in this style of death metal very often, I would have liked to hear more of it.

7/10