It doesn’t seem all that long ago that being a Metal fan was a fairly simple proposition. Loud, thrashy guitars, stratospherically shrieked vocals, drums that sound like they’re being played by a mutant hybrid of a blacksmith and an octopus — these were the consistent hallmarks of Metal. And while most Metal still proudly offers those elements, the genre has expanded and evolved almost exponentially since those first jaw-dropping Black Sabbath albums nearly half a century ago.
One of the unlikeliest crucibles for this incredible transformation has been the Richmond, Va. music scene, which has spawned some of the most diverse and inventive bands within and beyond the Metal community. And Inter Arma may be the king of the Doom heap.
Nuance isn’t a commodity that carries much value in Metal, but Inter Arma wields subtlety with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel rather than the body-count arc of a broadsword. The Richmond quintet is a perfect storm of Doom, Stoner, Sludge, Grindcore and Black Metal, with mercurial flashes of Punk, Psychedelia, Southern Hard Rock and symphonic Prog, all punctuated with the dirtiest hellhound vocals imaginable. Even for those who enjoy Metal but have never really embraced the raw fury of the Black end of the spectrum, Inter Arma is thrilling, visceral and unflinchingly compelling.
Over the past decade, since its 2006 formation, Inter Arma (which is the opening of the Latin phrase “inter arma enim silent leges,” roughly translated as “in times of war, the law falls silent”) has released a pair of howlingly mesmerizing full-lengths, 2010’s Sundown and 2013’s magnificently funereal Sky Burial, the band’s debut for one of America’s premiere Metal labels, Relapse Records. Inter Arma’s impending new album Paradise Gallows, slated for a July release, is reportedly the group’s first attempt at clean vocals, but promises to still be as uncompromising as anything in the band’s estimable catalog.
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This article appears in Apr 6-13, 2016.
