My bud Alex, the owner of Dolorem Records, has sent me a promo for one of his bands and this time it’s for Infern, a death metal band hailing from France.  The album cover is quite interesting with the Kaiju-sized crab.  When looking at this cover I had no idea WTF to expect.  Could this be goofy?  Seeing the burning skyline in the back then I thought, maybe this is some war-themed type of band?

10 songs in 40 minutes, the right amount of time for a death metal album and I have to say these 5 bastids have strung together a debut that is so strong, and I’m impressed.  There are many Bolt Thrower worship type of bands out there and while I enjoy several of them, nothing beats the real band, right??  Well while that statement continues to remain true I must say Infern’s debut Turn of the Tide may just be the closest band, in sound and style you will hear, next to the almighty Bolt Thrower!!!

“Undertow” starts things up with an intro, built into the song, before the music hits before the minute mark and growl and close your fucking eyes and listen folks…..tell me this is spot on Bolt Thrower even down to the guitar harmonies, for crissakes!!  The opening guitar riff could have been on Warmaster or The IVth Crusade.  Julien Tanguy does a spot on Karl Willets impersonation.  Even down to the way Karl would spit out those venomous vocals and curled some of his words!  So if you were expecting something like this to be played at a crushing mid-pace you would be correct!  Simon Beux plays those mid-paced drums perfectly, like Mr. Whale, once did.  Talk about an opening, then that rumbling mid-paced heaving heaviness to end the song I swear this sounds just like Bolt Thrower.

“Phineas Case” is up next and is more faster paced, like something that would have been on Warmaster.  The rumbling double bass and guitars from Pierre-Loup Corvez and Jean-Marie Grövel are incredible.  The gallop at the one minute mark, is old school death metal, not sounding like Bolt Thrower, but the song moves back into that mid-paced heaving Bolt Thrower moment with lots of great vocal lines and tones.  The guitar solo, afterwards, is pretty original and the song meanders into a terrific slow down groove, that is beatdown worthy.  Sylvain Collas provides the undercurrent of bass heaviness and it adds to the overall sound.

“March of the Grotesque” is a quicker-paced track, that has some killer mid-paced moments with stop-and-start riffing perfectly suited for headbanging.  The old-school early 90’s death metal gallop is quite excellent and this is where Infern executes a little more originality rather than going back to the Bolt Thrower well.

“To the Extreme” has some nice double pounding parts in the beginning and throughout portions of the song and these moments again are more of Infern injecting their own style. The mid-paced Bolt Throwerish worship returns and is scorchingly heavy.  This guitar tone is thick and meaty and will slam you over the head with a sledgehammer time and time again.  Some interesting guitar solos and with the main heavy riff in the background ensures the song stays heavy!!!

Hey, when I first looked at this album cover, I’ll be honest I was not expecting much, a big giant crab, c’mon…but the music is excellent.  This is such a killer homage to Bolt Thrower – it is out of control.  The band does inject enough of their own old-school brand of death metal into the mix as well. However, the nods to classic Bolt Thrower, are prevalent and absolutely incredible.  Turn of the Tide is one helluva debut album.  I am looking forward to Infern’s next album!

[Visit the band's website]

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