Slovakian Infer's debut album 'In Cold Blast...'... sorry, 'In Cold Being', is fast as fuck black metal. No mercy nor fucks given, they go through (almost) non-stop blasting for all you speed-heads to go crazy to.

Sawing guitars offer speedy tremolo and heavier riffing, and cold open-string playing. Like Formula 1 cars passing by all the time, while Thor is wielding Mjölnir in grey mists on the background. It still has a grim aura of balefulness and evilness. Infer didn't invent the wheel, far from it, because it's very familiar stuff. Think of Marduk's 1999 album 'Panzer Division Marduk' ripped off of most Swedish bits ('Destroying Your Desires' has very Dissection/Necrophobic/you know the deal style melodies), or Unlord's 1997 'Schwarzwald' with heavier and thicker tone. But it is boosted with some old Impaled Nazarene style believer-bashing insanity. 'Liar's Slavery' contains some US death metal parts for good spicing. No guitar solos happening on this album. It is not all about blastbeats, but generally it's not slowed down but a few times; the drummer really got no breathers, only some short breaks! At least there is some variety in beats, and rolls are there.

Most of the vocals are about demonic croaking. They vary in a bit throughout the album from higher to lower, and at times they hit a point when they remind of Abbath. There's some varying growls happening, too. Overally, the vocals are well done. There is a couple of movie samples, but "dead by dawn" bit from "Evil Dead II" and Tim Curry's Pennywise... The most frightening shit out there?! The lyrics are anti-Christian and anti-life.

The drums weren't triggered. The snare, that is the loudest of them, does have a snappy tone, but sometimes it sound like pounding an empty can. The bass drums are rather loud, but the bass guitar is not very audible. At least it isn't an easy task to spot it during fastest parts. Which happen so fucking much. And while using Steve Harris designed earphones, which have loads of bass frequencies? Some. But the bass drums and the bass guitar blend into a rumble a lot.

The sound is powerful, yet scabby. But scabby in a fine way: It's like watching some classic Hammer Films movie on VHS and not a lame remake of such beautiful movie on latest fucking hyper-dyper-definition apparatus that gets old in a blink of an eye. You know, feeling and vibe over plastic quality!

Is it easy to tell songs apart? Negative. However, what a cool album for letting out some stream, this. It slays, is evil enough and gets one battle-ready. It is simply a fucking fast black metal album, period.

"When sun is veiled by mourning.
We celebrate the suffering and weeping."

Rating: 7- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
11/16/2018 20:59