Too Obvious to Realize

I’ve been listening to this band called Inter Arma.  Most of their recent album, Sky Burial, comes across as ethereal, ambient black metal.  By calling it ethereal, I’m not trying to evoke any heavenly or light imagery.  This is the sound of the vast emptiness of loneliness and sorrow.  Perhaps ethereal isn’t the correct word to use.  Is there an analogous word that describes purgatory?  This isn’t the sound of hell: it’s not punishment or torment, it is despair.    

There is this one song on the album called “’sblood” that is vastly different than the rest.  I was drawn to this song the first time I heard it.  I’ve been unable to shake it.  I’ve been trying to figure out what it is and why I like it so much.  I think I’ve finally got it.

There seems to be no riff; it’s just a straight rhythm on a single note.  It’s just a rumble. 

Years ago a friend once said to me that in all good metal songs everyone is playing percussion.  While not a hard and fast rule, it’s been a pretty good rule of thumb.  Even so, there’s always some riff being played somewhere in the song.  I just couldn’t seem to find it in this song.

I listened to the song over and over again until it finally hit me: the drums are carrying the riff.  That repeating unit, the theme and variations that make up a song is being played by the drummer. 

With that clarity, I listened again.  I followed the drums like I would normally follow the guitar.  I felt like I had unlocked a door, able to hear more of the song, to begin to understand it.  I listened to the song evolve in the drums.  It was as if the curtain had been lifted and the secrets revealed.  However, this song had one more secret left to reveal.  It was something that now is so obvious I had no idea how I missed it initially.

By searching in the song and over-analyzing it, by trying to make a drum-driven metal song out of it, I had missed what it actually was.  The rhythm, the aggression, the build and drop; this song is just an industrial song.  It is industrial metal, industrial black metal.

With that realization I can stop obsessing over it.  Now, I can just enjoy the song.  I hope you do too.