siLLy puPPy As one of black metal’s most unholy cheerleaders for evoking the throne of Satan and all that good old fashioned misanthropy and pure evil shit, INQUISITION has been one of the few bands on the black metal scene that actually has forged a unique path without sacrificing all the roots that connect them to the second wave black metal scene. Formed in Colombia all the way back in 1988 by guitarist / vocalist Dagon, the moniker was changed to INQUISITION and relocated to the US where the band exists in Seattle at the present.

Having traversed three decades of extreme metal trends, INQUISITION has remained faithful to its past but craftily adds enough new elements on every album to keep the black metal underpinnings from fizzling out into generic irrelevance. Come 2020 and the band’s eighth album BLACK MASS FOR A MASS GRAVE and nothing has really changed in that department. Still simply a duo where Dagon performs vocals, guitars, keyboards and all songwriting duties, the only other performer Incubus is around for the ride as the carbon-based drumming machine to punctuate the blackened fury with the proper percussive outrage.

BLACK MASS FOR A MASS GRAVE is a lengthy blackened beast with twelve tracks that sprawl just shy of the 75 minute mark making this the lengthiest INQUISITION release to date although the band’s debut “Into the Infernal Regions of the Ancient Cult” from 1998 came close at a 66 minute running time. Despite the three decades of head banging and Satanic worship, INQUISITION is just as dedicated to usurping the throne with dark priestly duties and bringing about the anti-Christ or whatever Satanists do but who cares really! I’m just in it for the music and BLACK MASS FOR A MASS GRAVE showcases yet another avenue of exploration within the seemingly endless possibilities for expansive black metal cosmos.

The first thing noticeable about BLACK MASS FOR A MASS GRAVE is that the tempos are much slower and sludgier than the canon of quickened firebombs that came before. Slinking along often at the pace of doom or sludge metal on the faster side of the spectrum, BLACK MASS features the usual melody meets dissonance shtick with twin guitar outbursts, one the buzzsaw guitar fueled underpinning and another the melodic counterpoint that provides guitar licks and psychedelic accouterments. The album also has a noticeably vaster role for the keyboards as well with an almost martial rhythmic drive of the percussive drive which more often than not crafts tasty fills rather than the rampaging blastbeats of yore but they do still exist and used more sparingly for contrast.

This album is much more explorative in many ways although the main staple of black metal bombast and detachment is firmly in tact. There is much more attention paid to production and mixing on BLACK MASS than on previous albums although INQUISITION has never been afraid of employing modern micro-elements to bring out the melodic subplots of the ugly distorted chug-tests employed through the series of blackened guitar riffs and rampaging drum rolls. Dagon’s croaking vocal style is pushed lower down in the mix as the creepy guitar swells overpower them. There has been a huge interest in adding psychedelic elements to black metal in the last decade since bands like Oranssi Pazuzu and Blue Aus Nord have taken black metal into ever more surreal arenas and INQUISITION seems to be following those trends without fully cutting the umbilical cord of its origins.

INQUISITION is either a band you’re going to warm up to or not as Dagon’s croaky vocal style is surely an acquired taste but in reality black metal is supposed to be about crafting some of the most gnarled and repulsive sound combos in all of extreme metal and INQUISITION has not only followed the recipe to a hilt but has bucked the odds and managed to stand out from the legion of imitators of second wave pioneers. Add to that this band has managed to keep its black metal integrity and forging new techniques on each of the eight studio albums and in that regard BLACK MASS does not disappoint. While some may find this too melodic, too reliant on keyboard sounds for contrast and oft too slow to the point that it drifts into doom metal turf, i’m actually very fond of diversity of tones, timbres and tempos which keep the album from stagnating. After a four year absence INQUISITION is back and just as strong as ever. There’s nothing on BLACK MASS that will attract new members to the cult but for those already indoctrinated, this one is just as excellent as any other album that came before. Triumphant i say!