Things always get interesting when we get albums that start the blur the lines of categorization. I don’t mean the bands that are openly poking fun at how ridiculous it has gotten in recent years, but, rather, the bands that bring it about naturally whether it’s out of a goal to make something even slightly different or that’s just the trajectory that the evolution of the band has been going in for years. Whichever is the case with Inferno tonight I could not tell you in the slightest, but it’s with their latest album that they seem to be burgeoning forth from their shell of black metal to become something that is still very much related to that realm, but still so much more than just that.

Much like the utterly stunning cover art that reeled me in effortlessly, there is a unique macabre sense that permeates this entire work from beginning to end with mastery being shown at every possible turn without any inch of it being tainted by disappointment or ineffectiveness. Throughout the whole of “Paradeigma”, Inferno never once lets our expectations become reality as they are constantly going just barely against the grain to provide us with an experience that is so much more than just black metal as we get cues from all over extreme metal as well as Inferno’s refined style that, surely, they’ve been honing over their many years of material with this being a result that’s downright glorious in every form. There’s something utterly mind-bending about what is crafted within the endless depths of what Inferno accomplished the likes of which is very difficult for me to put my finger on as the whole of this record has true magic at every turn to provide us with an experience that not only itches that infernal scratch for scathing death metal, but it still manages to satisfy that need to explore what all the style can achieve sonically with “Paradeigma” never once shying away from the challenge nor does it once fail. It makes for an experience that cannot be compared to the vast majority of what the rest of black metal brings to the table, and it’s with their own identity that Inferno is quickly becoming poised to become a true phenomenon.

Albums like what we have here do not come around often by any mean whatsoever, and it’s always important to highlight and talk about them whenever they do for letting real genius fade into obscurity is tantamount to blasphemy if you ask me, and I refuse to commit such blasphemy against Inferno. Everything about “Paradeigma” exudes excellence the likes of which we can never get enough of, and it’s surely not the last of what’s to come from this exceptional name.

LISTEN to “Paradeigma (Phosphenes of Aphotic Eternity” on Bandcamp here.

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