La Boule Noire & Persona grata
19:30
20:00
20.12
For almost two decades, Inter Arma have stood out as one of the most inspired and intrepid bands in American metal.
New Heaven, Inter Arma’s sixth album and their first set of originals in five years, is a compelling testament to perseverance, from top to bottom. Inter Arma present a sound with a dense layer of doom, death and black metal, but which occasionally lets in the light. Mike Paparo’s vivid, empathetic lyrics about the innocent victims of war, drug addiction and social apathy affirm that sense of the grimacing survivor who, leaving the carnage behind, moves on as best he can.
With the exception of the 2020 Garbers Days Revisited cover set, every Inter Arma album since Sky Burial has topped the one-hour mark. New Heaven’s 42-minute runtime shouldn’t necessarily be taken as a lack of ideas or ambition. Rather, New Heaven functions like a complex obsidian flower, with musical moments that Inter Arma would once have let unfold in long digressions tucked away in the corners, small details left for diligent believers.