Inferius Torment – Your God Liar
It is widely accepted that Old Wainds are the pioneers of Russian Black Metal. They discovered the hideous verdant pastures of evil in their country and opened the way for grazing to commence below them. Since then, bands have come and gone but recently some have emerged to settle and prosper among the steppes. Enter Inferius Torment, a talented four piece from Omsk, the gateway to Russia’s vast far Eastern realms, who step forward to take their rightful place on the throne.
I’m not joking. This band is seriously good. They purvey a fairly technical, wholesome and diverse blend of Black Metal that leaves no gaps in their music, unlike their founding countrymen. They keep it short and to the point favouring short bursts of the trigger rather than a sustained raking fire – and with this precision they comprehensively eliminate any needless lengthy compositions as all eight tunes clock up merely half an hour. Quality, not quantity, reigns here.
The intro, which isn’t mentioned on the inlay and is the scene from the cover, has the goat vicar person praying amidst an evil farm, with down-tuned boars sniffing the shit blanketed earth and demonic goats bleating away. Once its over the first song wastes no time ploughing up the fucking soil. ‘Primordial Hate’ rips it up with fast scale riffing broken up by changes of pace for you to acclimatise. The structure of fast, slower, fast and repeat keeps the song pumping along frenetically and is surprisingly catchy in melody.
Dark, stalking vocals permeate and complement the musical tone of antagonism as ‘Dethronement of God’s Creation’ bursts from the speakers in a similar fashion as the opener. The second longest track, at a little over five minutes it has time to explore for a while, and it seems these madmen are equally skilled at cramming longer songs with addictive and torturous action as they are with the shorter ones. That said, ‘Blazing Church’ is a really abrupt morsel of blasphemic propaganda that could weld a couple of goats together at the face from twenty metres away.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Black Metal from around the world is the use of bad English. I don’t mean this in a patronising way, rather that it feels more chaotic and lends authenticity to the music’s ‘balls-out’ characteristics better than when written (or sung) perfectly. Titles like ‘Enslavement Christianity’, ‘Exterminate Humanity Planet’ and ‘Hate To Fucked Sky’ really make this album something special for me.
‘Enslavement Christianity’ is a mini anthem but bears the hallmarks of Inferius Torment’s aptitude, and features great bass lines in the core riffs which is where you realise the production of this is as high a calibre as the musicianship itself. ‘Infernal Hail, Sathanas!’ is a harsh little ditty and makes a change to hear a proper Black Metal song of only just over one minute.
Those strange boars from the intro re-appear for ‘Eternal Darkness’ and sing the chorus in their own inimitable style – they nail it and totally make this song. ‘Exterminate Humanity Planet’ runs at six minutes and is fucking brilliantly nasty: huge bellowing vocals and massive fuzzy middle tempo guitars. ‘Hate To Fucked Sky’ really steals the show and is the crowning glory of the whole CD. It’s rampant and calamitous throughout and features the best performances from all the band. This song should be their signature tune.
The only slight issue I had with Your God Liar was that some of the riffs sound familiar or borrowed from other bands, but if that’s by accident or on purpose I don’t care because the music is impressive none the less and more than speaks for itself.
So there you have it, without a doubt this is the best offering from Russia so far, a damn fine album. The only problem is if you want a copy you’d better hurry. Released by Victory By Fire Records it is limited to only 33 copies and at last count they were on copy number 24! Check out the band’s Myspace as most of the songs from this album are on there (at time of writing) and secure your copy now because in years to come I firmly believe this will be one of those ultra sought-after releases.
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I like what I’m hearing, excellent band but still I’d say Old Wainds kicks their ass big time. anyways, in top 10 bm acts from Russia
Old Wainds is pagans sucks. True Satanic Black Metal! Inferius Torment AMSG!
Excellent album!