Entitled ‘The Darkness of Suns’, Cypriot metallers A Motive Inhumane’s debut EP amounts to a tight, angular sixteen minutes, rich in different ideas and styles and immensely hard to pin down, though very loosely anchored around the Gothenburg school of melodic DM, with throaty, mid-range snarled vocals to match.
Opener ‘Deviant Tempest’ kicks off with a sharp, lamenting hook that quickly contracts and gives way to a leaden, almost doomy riff, the energetic drums seeing to it that the urgent pace never slips however, followed by a dense, narrow channel of galloping blackened DM, which segues in turn into a passage of dazed-and-delirious melody. After moment’s quiet reflection the song then launches off on another tangent via a towering, starkly melodic riff, which metamorphoses masterfully into a bittersweet, up-tempo gothic doom trudge that undulates in perfect slow-mo headbanging time; dejected yet smouldering and hugely commanding. It normally takes a band like My Dying Bride a good six or seven minutes to simmer the emotions to this kind of rousing culmination; A Motive Inhumane manage it here in a little over three. Dispel any notions that this is a doom EP though, rather the style is persistently fast and eclectic, with gloomier atmospheric riffs being worked in amongst a maelstrom of lean, clattering drums and razor-sharp melodic twists and turns.
With so many ideas crammed into songs that never cross the five minute mark, it would be easy for the end result to come across as indulgent or disjointed, but it’s to the band’s credit that this never happens- they know the styles they want to play and they know how to make them fit together without sounding contrived. ‘Imperfect Hosts’ is filled with gleaming, epic folk-tinged melodies bound to have fans of early In Flames grinning from ear to ear, the same musical template remaining as the pace flits between chaotically-fast and triumphantly-mid-paced, with melodic riffs pouring forth like sunlight spilling across a pristine landscape. Similarly, ’Decomposition’ is a compelling mix of mournful melodies wrapped around choppy hooks that recall both the Jester Race/Lunar Strain days as well as old Dark Tranquillity, the momentum rattling on up to peaks of harsher, yet still fiercely upbeat black-metal blasting and just a fleeting nod to At The Gates’ swansong opus, with a comparatively languid and crawling mid-section giving these segments a paroxysmal and abundantly energetic feel.
Closer “The Blood Red Tide” again retains the myriad Gothenburg influences and fierce dynamism noted above, the band now toying for a few bars here and there with some mid-paced crunching and stripped-down-and-sorrowful harmonies reminiscent of Rotting Christ’s ‘Triarchy of the Lost Lovers’. The main focus however is on spasms of terse yet beautifully fluid melody underpinned by some gratifyingly dense and incredibly tight drumming, before the song finally whirls itself unravelled to a fleeting chorus of clean vocals that lurk amidst the growls throughout the last few seconds.
Clearly the product of a talented and hardworking band, ‘The Darkness of Suns’ is a release which, much like Nervecell’s debut album ‘Preaching Venom’ , constantly reminds of other bands throughout its duration yet manages to avoid sounding stale or unoriginal by bringing together its composite elements in such a unique and engaging way. Well worth a look if you fancy some intelligent and vital-sounding melodic DM in the Gothenburg mould.
http://www.myspace.com/amotiveinhumane
