On This Earth is the rather short but appealing and concise debut album of Inver, a goth metal/rock three piece from Cheltenham. The band members come from diverse musical backgrounds – extreme metal, alternative acoustic, and traditional folk –, but for the project at hand they are employing the instrumentation and the melodies of gothic metal and dark rock, with synth tunes forming and integral part of their soundscapes, to convey their dark musings.
The debut is a gloomy, but altogether pleasant listen, featuring lots of melody and mostly clean vocals. The murky cover art provides a good introduction to the album’s themes: On This Earth is about the unsettling experience of getting lost, both literally and figuratively, of losing one’s compass and one’s focus, one’s anchor; it is about the feeling of no longer knowing where to turn to and whom to trust.
How does an individual get to this point? Well, we are not given any specifics and there are probably multiple routes. However, the album’s intro is titled Truth, and while in general it might be true that the truth will set you free, it is entirely feasible that in many instances being confronted with it will make you lose your way.
Truth, in any case, is the starting point of this album the course of which, according to the band, leads you “down a spiral staircase of introspection, into your deepest inner caverns”. And indeed, already on track number two, Lost Traveller, the winding, meandering guitars and the hectic drumming tell a story of aimless path seeking, with the vocals and the lyrics adding drama and pathos.
It’s a downward staircase for the first part of the album, and the cold, electric pulsing that forms the intro to Tarnished Son might be its lowest point. But although the atmosphere is at times desolate, the music is never without energy or movement and therefore neither static nor boring.
Devil’s Hands, chiefly composed of foreboding electronic buzzing with whispered lines of texts, with a bell sound here and there, breaks out of the gothic metal/rock sound template and adds a slightly disturbing element. The only bit of text that can be heard clearly is a line uttered towards the track’s end: We all get lost.
What follows is a song with the same title and a sound that returns to the initial combination of hectic drumming and meandering guitars. But now it has a different quality. It appears that there is some solace to be found in the fact that one’s suffering isn’t a singular experience but one that is shared by others.
I Stand With Trees, the albums final and longest track, featuring the combination of acoustic guitar, synth tunes and reminiscing lyrics, is permeated by a sense of acceptance and maybe even triumph stemming from the conscious decision to embrace “the dark paths that fate has assigned us”.
Dark and brooding, but also energetic and determined and thus inspiring. While there might be a bit of sanding necessary on the edges of the song writing and the production, and while there is certainly space for further refinement, I liked this spirited debut and will be on the lookout for further material.
(7/10 Slavica)
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