Exploring New Heaven with Inter Arma
This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #178. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.
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Ruminations on the power of the riff.
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There are few things deeper darker, and more incomprehensible to normal, well-adjusted people than the interconnected web of metal’s innumerable subgenres. The interactive web project Map of Metal (mapofmetal.com) does an admirable job of charting the connections between the most consequential metal offshoots, visualizing the labyrinthine complexity of how all things metal fit together. Even for those well-versed in metal history, scrolling around its multitude of hubs and spokes is not only an interesting diversion, but a useful illustration of the complex relationships between its various sub-styles.
It’s unclear where exactly Inter Arma would best fit on this map, and as such, it’s hard to know exactly to describe them with any amount of concision. According to the Encyclopedia Metallum – as close to an authoritative archive of metal that may exist – they’re slotted under sludge metal, death metal, black metal and post-metal; these labels aren’t inaccurate, but they don’t fully encapsulate the band’s identity either, which seamlessly synthesizes these influences and more into a singular sound of their own.
On their recently released sixth full-length album New Heaven, Inter Arma have done nothing to make categorizing them any easier. It’s a record that rests somewhere near the nexus of the metal universe, equally at ease with pummeling black metal beats, power metal crescendos and atmospheric psychedelia. This kind of genre-hopping has earned them both praise and scorn; the title of their 2019 fifth full-length Sulphur English was a reference to the acrid verbiage of their most vocal critics. Sometimes making enemies is a sign you’re doing something right, but one can’t blame them for taking a subtle shot back.
Those detractors are unlikely to be much happier with New Heaven than they have been with Inter Arma’s previous work. If Sulphur English was a direct challenge to their haters, then this may be an even stronger repudiation of expectations to conform, even if they don’t spell it out as such. From start to finish, the album shapeshifts with ease between forms, crisscrossing the metal map with expert grace, yet without sacrificing their own creative identity. At no point do its myriad influences feel disjointed; rather, they are synthesized into a singular sound that is distinctly Inter Arma, and no one else.
New Heaven wastes little time before it upends expectations. The record opens with a discordant noise that would not sound out of place on a mid-2000s metalcore record, featuring angular guitars playing dissonant intervals that establish an anxious atmosphere. The band then agitates that feeling by locking into a series of punishing death metal riffs that underpin a cavernous vocal performance from frontman Mike Paparo and closing out with a ripping guitar solo that brings those anxious vibes to their peak. It’s a powerful opening statement that showcases the off-kilter grooves and haunting sense of existential dread that Inter Arma have come to be known for, while mixing in surprises we’ve yet to hear in their near two-decade career.
If the rest of New Heaven followed a similar template, it would likely remain one of the best metal records to come out this year. However, this is an Inter Arma album, and we should know better than to think they would stick within rigid constraints. The most interesting moments on New Heaven might be the instances where they veer into more experimental areas. “Endless Grey” takes its foot off the gas with triumphant harmonized guitars undergirded by a distorted bass line that invokes some Cliff Burton-era Metallica influence.
It offers just a short breather before “Gardens in the Dark” enters Nick Cave-esque vocal territory while mixing in drumbeats that faintly feel like they’re channeling an influence from ’80s new wave and goth rock (listen in at the 1:35 mark). Closer “Forest Service Road Blues” explores similar vocal stylings over piano, acoustic guitars, and violins, wrapping up the record on a melancholic note that leaves behind little sense of resolution, but invites the listener to start the record over again and peel back more of its layers on repeat spins.
It’s in these decidedly non-metal moments on the back half of the record where Inter Arma prove they are not just a great metal band, but a great band in general, one that’s more concerned with pursuing what sounds most interesting rather than what’s most fitting within a given genre’s conventions. If there is a unifying thread between its disparate tracks, it’s that the band never turns in the direction you think they will, but they often end up in more interesting places than where most metal bands would be willing to go.
The result is a record that retains Inter Arma’s unique creative vision while stretching the parameters of their sound to incorporate new textures and moods. However New Heaven is categorized, language will always feel insufficient in some way, as it is near impossible to pin down onto a single waypoint along the broader spectrum of heavy music. While it has never been less clear where Inter Arma fit in the metal scene, it also feels like they’ve never been more confident in their own work as a band, comfortable enough to do exactly what they want without regard for imaginary rules. Rather than asking where they belong, perhaps a better question we should ask is, “Where will they lead us next?”
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Ben Sailer is a writer based out of Fargo, ND, where he survives the cold with his wife and dog. His writing also regularly appears in New Noise Magazine.
