Indian — From All Purity

Indian unleashed their brand of sludgy doom fury on the world in 2003. Two years later, their first full length was released by Portland, OR's Seventh Rule Recordings. The two follow ups were successful enough to secure the Chicago metallers a spot on the Relapse Records roster. Their Relapse debut, Guiltless, was met with great reviews from all over the community. Here we are, three years later, and Indian and Relapse have released their follow up, From All Purity. The boys took a slightly different, noisier approach on this album. Time will tell if metal fans will appreciate their new sound.

Ever bombastic, Relapse speaks of Indian's "keener sense of harsh noise" and declares this album "the opposite of easy listening." While the former may not quite be true, the latter is a pretty solid assessment. "Rape" starts the album off with a slow, heavy drum, thick guitars, and a little bit of noise for flavor. Dylan O'Toole adds some awesomely scratchy black metal-esque vocals and things shape right up. "Rape" is sludgy, slow, and mean much like, um, rape, I guess. Now is as good a time as any to mention that all songs on For All Purity are over six minutes (well, minus "Clarity," but that'll be discussed later). "The Impetus Bleeds" slows the pace down a bit more. The rise of the guitar notes cut though the fog and help to give the song some personality. The noise on this one gets a bit more structured and goes in time with the music in an interesting fashion. "Impetus" feels like an older song than it is, even with the pretty new meshing of sound. "Directional" opens up with a nice, thick riff with some background noise accompaniment. Other than some random noise bits peeking their heads up, it's nothing too different than what came before. "Rhetoric of No" makes a solid effort to change that, though, and moves along at a brisker pace. Bill Bumgardner's drums are a bit more inspired on this one and the hi-hat is a nice touch. The growling rip at the end always struck me as the most memorable part of the album (probably just because he sounded like he was singing about someone I know). The noise in the back picks up a bit, and the song ends on a pretty strong note. "Disambiguation" closes the album out with a more open, less murky sound. It's still thick and fuzzy, yeah, but the instruments have more of a symphonic sound instead of sludge and gloom. This is a really excellent song and a strong finish to a good album.

In between "Rhetoric" and "Disambiguation" is "Clarity." This will most likely turn off most metal fans, but I doubt Indian is concerned about that. "Clarity" plays like a pretty amateur power electronics song. The vocals are awesome and harsh, but the electronics are uninspired and slapdash. I could tolerate some fairly "meh" electronics in the background of good sludge, but on their own, they're depressing, and not in an Atrax Morgue sense. Hearing this lackluster electronics is surprising, too, considering that Indian works with Mark Solotroff of Bloodyminded. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, though, as I've never found them all that entertaining either (though, I appreciate all they've done for the scene and they're super nice dudes). Part of me applauds them for the effort and including this track, but the other part says, "make it count!" I guess not everyone can be Nikudorei.

From All Purity is a very solid album. While at work, I would play it on repeat and dig it for a few hours in a row (the things I do for you people!!). It's good, but nothing mind blowing. The vocals are cool, the noise is "meh" but a nice thought, and the instruments sound good and are well played. However, it's very samey samey, but, really, that's doom for you.