Published: December 20, 2024

My second review from a batch of CD’s that Hypnotic Dirge Records sent to me keeps things rolling along with more outstanding music. I believe this is a one man project hailing from Portland, Oregon, USA. I’ve never been there. Michigan is a long way. But I know a guy from there that likes to wear pens behind his ear to look cool. He’s a cool guy. Beard, tall… you know all that Northwestern U.S. stuff. Let me shut my yapper and dive into this and see what we have, shall we?

“Inevitable” really reminds me of that late 90’s/early 00’s Northwestern Black Metal that had its own unique sound. Agalloch is the big band in that genre, and they also are from Portland. The music here is reminiscent, but it definitely has its own sound. Slow, depressive and melancholy guitars, bass and drums all played very professionally. At times the music dwindles to almost pure acoustic or ambient music that lulls me into a contemplative state. This is phenomenal stuff. Once in a while the music is faster, but rarely gets past mid-temp. This is not upbeat music, and it’s not intended to be. Don’t expect it to cheer you up.

I try to use Metal Archives as little as possible, but sometimes it can’t be helped. It says there under the band member section… “None”. I’m sure that means the info is unavailable, but it could be the band member’s stage name as that’s the band name as well. Either way, he has an excellent vocal delivery which is slower a paced Black Metal style like the music is. There are some great whispered vocals as well. I’ll say it again; I love this album! Metal Archives came to the rescue with lyrical content. They are not printed in the CD booklet, so seeing this was from Portland and that there was nature photography for the album cover, I assumed the lyrics were about nature like a lot of those older albums from there were about, but apparently, they are about misery, grief and alcoholism. I don’t know if he’s pro alcoholism or anti, but I had my demons with it and am now almost a year sober.

The production is great, and I could find anything wrong with the sound quality of the album.

The cover art, like I mentioned above, is a black and white photo of the deep woods. Either this forest was burned, or the photo was taken in winter. Maybe it’s a tree disease as the evergreens have no needles. It’s haunting to look at and sets the mood for the album well. Inside of the digipak has a photo of the band member, with his face etched out and the back panel has more photography and a tracklist. There is no album info at all. Sneaky!

None has a few more full-length albums out I need to get a hold of because “Inevitable” rules. If I’d have heard this last year when it came out it would have made my Top 10 list. Very good job to all involved and I hope to see more albums in the future!