UMUR "Paradise Gallows" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US, Virginia based sludge/post metal act Inter Arma. The album was released through Relapse Records in July 2016. It´s the successor to "Sky Burial" from 2013, although the two albums were bridged by "The Cavern" EP from 2014. The lineup who recorded "Sky Burial (2013)" are intact.

Stylistically Inter Arma have developed and refined the rather eclectic metal style they played on the predecessor, and if possible "Paradise Gallows" is an even harder to label album than "Sky Burial (2013)" was. The music features elements of sludge, Post-metal, death metal, doom metal, and black metal. So the listener is exposed to both mid-paced sludgy sections, slow and heavy doomy sections, atmospheric post-metal sections, brutal death metal sections, and fast blasting blackened sections. The vocals vary between growling, raw shouting hardcore influenced vocals, black metal type shrieking, and clean vocals on the closing track "Where the Earth Meets the Sky".

The band are well playing, and the album features a dark, organic, and professional sound production, which suits the material well. So "Paradise Gallows" is on most parameters a high quality release. It´s up for debate if the eclectic nature of the material is a strength or a weakness, but that´s probably an aquired taste, and fans of releases featuring many different stylistic traits should find lots to enjoy here. It´s adventurous music and the listener is taken on a 70 minutes long and dark journey, featuring more than a few surprises on the way. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

Nightfly Inter Arma’s new album, Paradise Gallows is my introduction to this incredible band. It’s their third so far so I’m looking forward to checking out the back catalogue of these ultra-heavy Virginian’s on the strength of this one.

Paradise Gallows may just be the heaviest album I’ve heard this year. Sludge may be where we have them listed here on MMA but this band clearly refuses to be bound by genres incorporating doom and death metal into their sound. Album opener Nomini gives no hint of the barrage of slow doomy hypnotic riffs to follow and sounds more like something from a Wishbone Ash album. The theme returns for longer later in the album on Potomac but this time injecting some heavier elements as it builds to a climax. The contrast couldn’t be greater as the doomy An Archer In The Emptiness kicks in and the sound is huge. The riffs are monolithic as are T J Childers drums and what an inventive player he is! Vocalist Mike Paparo alternates between a low death growl and a scream. Most of the songs are pretty long sometimes breaking the 10 minute barrier giving them the opportunity to lock into a groove or build to a tumultuous crescendo. Most of the riffs are slow and heavy but the drums are everywhere with rolling double kick patterns, blastbeats and fills contrasting, Transfiguration being a case in point. While there’s a similar feel throughout the album, apart from the few mellower moments, they create enough musical tension to make it an overall compelling listen. The climax of all this mayhem is Violent Constellations, the second last track where they seem to pull out all the stops and create their most apocalyptic moment of the entire album. In case it’s all a bit too much they’ve chosen to end with the acoustic guitar driven Where The Earth Meets The Sky with clean vocals and even harmonies!

Paradise Gallows is an awesome slab of metal and anyone who enjoys the more extreme sub-genres are advised to check these guys out. For me it’s up there in my top 5 albums of the year so far.

AtomicCrimsonRush Inter Arma’s “Sky Burial” is a diverse album merging so many various styles that it is quite astonishing. The opening track ‘The Survival Fires’ is brimming over with dark shrieks of black metal over an incessant doomy riff that represents a very deep resonating sludge metal sound. It simply grinds your ears to pulp and those shrieks are downright manic. It continues with the main riff hypnotising you until it moves into a lengthy lead break that is distorted and finally an outbreak of speed drumming and an onslaught of heavy riffs brought mercilessly to a halt by one final guitar blast. After this assault the next track ‘The Long Road Home (Iron Gate)’ just settles into gentle acoustics and quiet singing which is jarring to the ear after the previous brutality.

This is followed by a 10 minute spacey piece ‘The Long Road Home’ that is so reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s ‘Careful With That Axe Eugene’ I expected shrieks any second. Instead there is a soaring lead break of palatable beauty that follows. The guitars are well executed by Steven Russell and Trey Dalton. This lead guitar solo is so uplifting it is sensual to the ears caressing them with long strokes. The wind effect lends a corporeal effect making it seem like the moonlit hallows of some darkened forest.

The psychedelic atmosphere is totally broken with the next track ‘Destroyer’ that opens with a blast of distorted guitar and hyper speed percussion. The shrieks return and Mike Paparo screams his throat rawer than vintage Tom Gabriel Fischer. The speedy guitar lick is weird as it is not like the average speed metal lick but more of a speeded up jam session. The drums are incredible by T.J. Childers. I used to listen to a lot of Bathory in the 90s and this sounded like the band were channelling the dark tones of Tomas "Ace" Börje Forsberg aka Quorthon, especially the memorable ‘Call From The Grave’. Joe Kerkes doomy bass line is a feature, and the guitars lock into a sludge metal riff as lowered shrieks are heard. I have no idea of the lyrics but it sounds bleak and is perhaps about some blood sacrifice though I don’t want to know. I also felt the voice here was more like the sound heard by Death especially on their “Spiritual Warfare”. I certainly felt like I was too old to be revisiting the music I used to listen to in my mid 20s and I know I could not play this out loud or my wife would walk out so my earphones came in handy! It is not for the squeamish as it really is dark metal, but for those into it they will eat this up no doubt. That droning guitar is a sludge sound and is perhaps more akin to a machine than actual music. The tribalistic drums quicken the heart rate and it gradually builds slowly with patience into a frightening crescendo. Though this throbbing guitar drone goes on way too long for its own good and becomes an annoyance after a while like an angry wasp.

The next track ‘’sblood’ has a skull crunching tribal rhythm like Sepultura’s “Roots Bloody Roots” classic or even those drums on of 80s Celtic Frost. The song has more variation with a number of tempo changes and styles so appeals to me more and my prog attuned ears. I would hail it as one of the best on the album and it deserves to be heard if not anything else on this album. ‘Westward’ is another lengthy affair at about 10 minutes, and has too much screeching vocals for my tastes but the lead break is fabulous. I love the main riff on this that just grinds along at a steady pace.

‘Love Absolute’ is shorter at 4 minutes, and is an instrumental that focusses on acoustic finger picking at first that sounds like the typical quiet intro to 80s metal but there is a screeching in the background threatening to explode the quiet atmosphere. Instead a ghostly synth sound enters howling at a high frequency and gives it a Gothic ethereal vibe.

‘Sky Burial’ is a 13 minute doomy track that crunches along steadily on 4 barre chord changes. The lead guitar embellishments are sonically phased like a distant cry. Then it settles into a dreamy slow pace with psychedelic atmospheres. I can actually discern the lyrics on this one that are “At long last I have scaled, The spire to the sky, A stone's throw to the heavens above, Far past the skylines of cities, Fading into ruination, Far past the threadbare flags of nations spiralling into entropy, At this summit I'll feign death to call forth the scavenger's clan.” So there you go, that is what they are singing about, some mystic rituals of dark arts and an adventure of Gothic explorations through dark chasms and misty mountains. This one is very doom metal in sound and again has that Bathory sound though not as raw.

In a similar way to some Opeth albums there are songs that really appeal to me and then there are moments that are not to my tastes, particularly the darker screeches that are really only going to appeal to elite black metal or extreme metal fans. I liked the sludgey metal sounds and some of the more innovative moments but I believe this is an album that will divide opinion due to its insanely dark content and atmospheres. 3 stars for the original approach of blending psychedelic sounds with doomy black metal.

UMUR "Sky Burial" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US doom/sludge metal act Inter Arma. The album was released through Relapse Records in March 2013.

The band play a very eclectic blend of musical styles which makes a genre label almost impossible to apply to "Sky Burial". You´ll find doom, sludge, post-metal/rock, black metal and death metal elements all mixed together to form a rather intriguing and adventurous sound. This is definitetly music for the open-minded listener. The music is generally very dark and the atmosphere bleak, which go well with the predominantly slow and heavy pace of the music. There are however faster blasting parts on the album too, so not everything is doomy. The vocals are mostly raw and shouting sludge/post-metal styled vocals, but there are both death metal growling and black metal shrieks on the album too.

After listening to the incredibly dark and haunting opening track "The Survival Fires", the album takes a complete left-turn with first the acoustic strummed "The Long Road home (Iron Gate)" (overlayed with effect laden almost psychadelic lead guitar sounds) and then with "The Long Road home", which initially starts in the same style, but about mid way through explodes in an almost orgasmic Gilmouresque guitar solo, just to close with 2 minutes of atmospheric black metal blasting. Wow...this album really is eclectic in nature. Or how about the ritualistic sounding drumming in "´sblood". An obvious nod towards Neurosis. Some sections might be sligthly too repetitive in nature, but the repetition is almost always a means to create atmosphere and building to a climax.

The raw and organic sound production further enhances the listening experience, but it is the songwriting that makes "Sky Burial" a keeper. You can play as well as the best and have a professional and powerful sound production too, but if you don´t have the songwriting to boot, your project is sure to hit the ground with a bang. Inter Arma know how to write memorable and intriguing material that´ll challenge and entertain most listeners and the importance of that should never be underestimated. "Sky Burial" deserves a 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating.