The problem with having an idea for the visual aspect of your band these days is that for every person who gets it or thinks it cool, there will be two or three who think it dull or laughable. So its probably best that I leave it at that for these gas mask toting cyber-demons. What I did guess though was from said image I suspected a dose of gabba strength industrial blackened death metal was in the wings. Pretty close as it turns out.
After an Event Horizon style intro of weirdness and satanic chanting with a sci-fi lilt, we get hit by the full on impact of Nexus Inferis which pretty much takes my head off in one riff. Now I should warn your about the drums; although fans of The Berzerker will have no issues whatsoever (and probably get a kick out of the album as a whole), the light speed hair trigger pummeling is a bit love or hate. But also perfect and essential for their music. Anything else would just not have worked. Its the industrial sound of metal on metal, a template stable and true since Demanufacture went off all those years ago.
Noisy little bastards this lot too. Which of course is A Good Thing. An even better thing is the fact that this isn't just one dimensional hammering. Nexus Inferis understand the concept of variety and atmosphere; they use their keyboards well to paint the backdrop and to work with the hyperspace riffs to twist the songs into their dark universe. What we end up with is a curious mix of Fear Factory, SYL, Aborym, less weird Axis Of Perdition and.... some brief flashes that remind me of The Kovenant's use of keyboards. But dont worry, even that works well.
' The New Strain' for example, with its juddering industrial riff broken apart and reformed by the constant impact of keyboard squall and vocoder vocals, sounds odd on paper but the aural impact is excellent and unsettling. ' Beyond Evolution Rubicon' continues their obsession of a cyber age gone badly wrong with some dark black metal grimness fed screaming into the maw of the machine and returning cold and hungry.
I guess that some part of me is still surprised by how big a shadow Demanufacture still casts over this corner of our musical world, and the irony that entails considering the futuristic aims of the sound, but perhaps that is the definition of 'classic' and nothing to bring down Nexus Inferis for.
A Vision Of The Final Earth is far from perfect as an album but still pretty damned impressive for a debut. It doesn't overstay it's welcome (too many bands of this ilk think that fifty minutes is the lower limit for an album...) and keeps things moving and for the most part very interesting. Its brutally heavy as you could wish for and incorporates keyboards without tempering that brutality one jot. Yes tracks like Cerebrum can suffer from a one channel, blinkered riff until the end attitude but such passages are spaced out by others of real inspiration. Closer ' Through My Conscious One Last Time' is an excellent example and a real curveball; pushing further into that ominous weirdspace and leaving you with the real hope that this odd crew have some deep space madness in their future that will blow holes in bulkheads the next time round.
Well worth investing in.
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Gizmo
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