InferaI’m all up for a bit of black metal that’s so cold feels like someone’s dropped an entire bag of ice cubes down your back and you’ve got your vest tucked into your underpants. So chilly, it hurts. But this year I’ve gone from hate-filled and frosty, to psychedelic and now to something you might even describe as, well, warm. Sacrilege, you say! Tip another bag of ice cubes down his back, shouts someone else…! But, hear me out, please. This is still as black as pitch in many ways and it certainly isn’t what any sane person would call happy or, indeed, warm.

The nods to the sources of reference are all there. Particularly in the sixth and penultimate track, Proclamation Part III – In Conjuration, which has got the frosty jack boot of Enslaved stamped firmly on it. But in the first few tracks I can also hear similar structures to the criminally overlooked Helheim and I swear there is a loose reference to A Forest of Stars in the lyrics, another reference point and two bands perhaps even more worthy of the term ‘progressive black metal’ than the beardy Norwegians themselves.

Hearing Infera Bruo for the first time it comes as no surprise they’ve found a suitable home on Bindrune – a label which has managed to put out some stunning releases from Spectral Lore, Panopticon and Falls of Rauros in the past year. Any fans of those bands should definitely check this out too. Riffs that tease their way along a path between dastardly simple and hypnotic and at the same time teasing out minor variations at every turn with the clear aim of drawing you into their swirling atmospheric chasm.

Tracks like opener Astrogenesis add layer upon layer of twisting changes to the arrangements and sparsely but cleverly used effects and keyboards. So much so that you eventually get lost in the obvious passion for what is being produced here and the enveloping glow of the music. Infera Bruo never crush you with their wall of sound but always leave the elements in sharp focus and easily picked out. The occasional light touch of clean vocals merely adds another string to the finely honed bow that these Bostonians use to pin you down. As with all of the best atmospheric black metal, if this can be called that, by the time the rapture of the guitar solo of the second track formless releases itself on you about 12 minutes into the album you’d be forgiven for forgetting you were listening to black metal at all as the music simply takes on a form all of its own.

Following so closely in the footsteps of Enslaved could be seen as asking for trouble, and those clean vocals will always draw those comparisons. But Infera Bruo are no mere clones and this, dare I say, at least in my listening parlour (the back seat of the no. 52 bus from Victoria Station) bursts out of any throwaway comparisons. In Conjuration rises like the heat of the first seconds of the rising sun over snow heavy forests. The fierce attack of Send My Ashes to the North blasts through the speakers but then alternatively bends into the wind with some much less predictable patterns.
It’s a good example of the growing confidence of the band and an album which feels very accomplished and complete even if I would have happily had more of the same. Progressive without ever sinking into a pit of its own self regard and, at times, as cold and violent as any black metal band can be. Infera Bruo’s In Conjuration is an individual and addictive release despite their obvious – and increasingly, perhaps – misplaced veneration.

(8.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)

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