Infested Blood
Interplanar Decimation Review
I've been listening to heavy metal since the eighties and extreme metal music music for twenty years, and certain records were too much for me when I first heard them. But as I spent time with Symphonies of Sickness, Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren Ka, Black Force Domain, Axis of Advance/Conqueror/Revenge, Panzer Division Marduk, World Downfall, Grind Virus, Paracoccidioidomicosisproctitissarcomucosis, etc., I learned to appreciate and embrace what was going on, and my tastes developed to include music at a new level of extremity. Eventually, with albums like these, I enjoyed ... and I understood.
Such understanding will never come to me regarding the sonic insanity that is Interplanar Decimation, by the Brazilian band Infested Blood.
There is a real reason for this. For the major part of this twenty-eight minute album Infested Blood DOES NOT PLAY IN A TIME SIGNATURE. I'm not saying they change the meter a lot---a hundred wanker tech bands I dislike do that---I am saying that for most of this punishing album, THERE IS NO METER. You cannot count the beats or even the time changes, because there is no beat underneath this whirling assault for you to count. They are bananas.
Interplanar Assault is a fast and frantic event of syncopation, airborne riffs and mania. Shit just happens all over the place, loudly and angrily, and you can't stop it. Irregular riff fragments and long, winding hooks fly into the vacuum and the drummer accents things---lots of things, since ALMOST ALL OF THE ALBUM IS ACCENTS. While this alien (or telepathic?) shredding and pummeling occurs, some guy gurgles and grunts whenever the hell wants to. Why not?
So the reason I will only give this wild and brutal release an above-average recommendation is that it is a thing to witness and marvel at--truly--but it is such an unrelenting assault, such a maniacal beatdownclusterfuck, that I doubt I will ever really enjoy it. And since it is ten-to-the-tenth-power of too much, it gets a bit monotonous after about four songs of chopped riffs, pounding accents and velocity cranking: Rarely does the listener get much in the way of culmination moments or gratification.
Interplanar Decimation is extreme by even the most extreme standards, a punishing, jackhammer assault in 360 degrees that shows that the members of Infested Blood have a shared madness...