Indian
From All Purity

Release Date: 2014 | Tracklist

Indian is a blackened sludge metal outfit based out of Chicago with five studio albums and an EP under their belt. Their music is characteristically very harsh, pummeling, and unrelentingly depressing, and this new LP is no exception. At just over forty minutes spread over six tracks, this album presents a form of doom metal that has a very heavy black metal influence on the vocals and a strong sense of noise coming through on the instrumentals, including having a flat out noise drone as the penultimate track.

On this album, Indian makes sure that there is not one moment of pleasantness on this album. Sludge is a genre that has roots in the boggy swamps of Louisiana, and it is demonstrated extremely well here. To start, the vocals. On every song here, lead singer Dylan O'Toole gives a truly terrifying performance on the mic, letting out some midrange screams that are heavily distorted due to the sheer volume at which he is belting, yet also being tangible enough to understand some of the oddly disturbing yet poetic lyricism. His screams sound inhuman at some points, and on the final track, Disambiguation, are heavily reverberated, really bringing that black metal influence home. The beginning of Rhetoric of No is a stand out moment, with Dylan letting out his animalistic vocals at a much more constant and aggressive pace than he usually can over the band's doomy and spacious guitars.

Next, the guitar work. As expected for a metal band of this breed, they are heavily distorted and heavily downtuned, but they do something different too. On almost every track, they completely forgo the idea of having a tangible riff, instead laying on one minor or dissonant chord for sometimes minutes on end the way a band like Swans would, but in a much more destructive and pummeling fashion. The opening of this album is the exact same chord being strummed for almost a minute with no changes, and the track uses only this chord for almost a solid three minutes, breaking it up with feedback, before going into a heavy and somewhat harmonized section that emphasizes a very different tone than the stuff before it. With the exception of Rhetoric Of No, every song basically drones and builds on one or two riffs while Dylan screams and howls over it. This is especially true of Directional, which over the span of its six and a half minutes literally uses one riff with no improvisation or changes. The only moment of pleasantness in these songs is the song The Impetus Bleeds, which is actually slightly accessible because of the very mournful and depressive guitar leads instead of the constant dissonant and droning sounds like on every other song. This track also has the best guitar solo on the album, a rarity in Indian's work in general. However, the brutalization does become a bit stale, and can lead to this album and its songs feeling a bit one note at some points.

The drumming on here is fantastic, but I feel it isn't entirely interesting enough to deserve a full paragraph. I will however acknowledge the absolutely fantastic job done on the recording and mixing of these; they don't drown out anything else in the album and don't feel buried. When the snare is hit, it feels monstrous, the bass drums pummel like a jackhammer and the crash cymbals add a fantastic metallic flourish whenever they're used. The real standout that makes this album as fantastic as it is however, is the noise. Directional, as stated before, has a riff that does not change, but that does not mean the song does not change by any means. On here, Indian slowly turns up the heat, adding unpleasant feedback and head splitting sounds until the songs end up becoming the most hellish thing to ever be laid to record out of Chicago. Clarify is the previously mentioned noise interlude and it is by far the most unpleasant song on the album. I have no idea what it is, but the opening sounds on here are at such a frequency that it genuinely gives me headaches when I'm not in the right mood for it. Behind all of these attacks on the eardrums is a very heavy guitar drone and overly distorted and modulated vocals that are pretty unsettling to listen to at night with the lights off. Every song on here features some form of this, whether it be feedback or electronics or some other harsh noise, they're all here to make sure you don't forget the album.

In terms of problems however, there are a few. These tracks with the exception of Rape and Rhetoric Of No end quite literally out of nowhere, sometimes in the middle of a chord, and this is especially terrible on the closer, since it leaves the album feeling incredibly unfinished. As well, Clarify feels a bit shoved into the record, being where it is as the final note before the outro, and speaking of the outro, it also feels as though it could use a bit more time to develop its sound. If Indian was going to suck your soul, they definitely could've added something like a five minute noise piece or drone to the end of this to hammer in the fact that there is no hope left in this world.

Regardless, this is just fantastically made sludge metal record that leaves you with a feeling of utter despair by way of auditory pummeling and creatively done noise. The six tracks are all identifiable by some defining feature, Rape being the longest, The Impetus Bleeds having the most melody, Directional is the slow scorcher and mind melter, Rhetoric of No is the most busting and propulsive song by far, Clarify is the not-even-metal track, and Disambiguation is the slowest and creepiest on here.

Recommended tracks: The Impetus Bleeds, Rhetoric Of No, Directional

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3.8 excellent

Rank: #0 for 2014