Every painfully delayed beat and gut-grindingly detuned chord is well wielded.
Review by David Feltman
Indian is so abrasive that it’s cleansing, like scrubbing your inner ear with steel wool. The band may bill itself as “blackened doom,” but neither the doom nor black metal labels are a snug fit. Sure it captures the guttural harshness of black metal, but its gruelingly slothful drone makes it a closer cousin to the likes of High on Fire and Harvey Milk. The effect is devastatingly heavy. This is music to hate to.
From All Purity marks the Chicago natives fifth release and the tenure shows. Every painfully delayed beat and gut-grindingly detuned chord is well wielded. Slow is often more technically taxing than fast when it comes to extreme tempos, and Indian manages it expertly with Black Cobra levels of psychic synchronicity. Every growl, every fed back squeal falls perfectly in place.
The album is skillfully crafted, sporting a scant six songs. But an average track time of seven minutes makes up for the short set list. The new release hits so hard and unfurls so gradually that it never feels skimpy. And just when you think Indian couldn’t get any more punishing, the band winds up so tightly with the discordant static and screams of “Clarify” that the opening melodic refrains of the closing track, “Disambiguation,” come across as a small mercy.
This, admittedly, isn’t an album approved for all metal fans. Indian falls far on the extreme side of the metal spectrum, but gloriously so. If you like shouts and chords so loud and lengthy that they devolve into nihilistic noise before the next note hits, then this is your band.
You can find more about Indian on Facebook and on its official website.
