Darkwave.ro electro/industrial music magazine | news – reviews – interviews – concerts – festivals – parties

“Ad Inferna have reached the next level, bringing their typical sound to perfection – and mixer Vasi Vallis has done a very good job!” (Kolja Trelle aka SOMAN)

Less than a year after their 2010 “DSM” album release, AD INFERNA are back with their new album, “There Is no Cure”, scheduled to be released with Nilaihah Records on April-26 this year. “There Is no Cure” features Kari Berg (formerly of Ashbury Heights) and Zombie Girl. The album was mastered by Vasi Vallis (Frozen Plasma, Reaper) with the remixes being mastered by Sebastian Komor (Komor Kommando, Icon of Coil).

The 9-track album will be accompanied by numerous remixes for the tracks “Resurrection” and “Sex Spell”, performed by Reaper, Alien Vampire, Acylum, Chaos All Stars, Inline Sex Terror, End the DJ, Terrolokaust, Erotic Elk, r@zorbla.de and Electrovolt. 

This delicate and dark electro album features a wonderful introduction under the form of its initial track, “The Presence”. Eerie music coupled with arcane lyrics in Latin and English, form an initial, ancient imprecation.  While it is no mystery regarding what this “Presence”, since this is one of the millennium-old names of God, it is unclear whether the imprecation is thought as a summoning of the divine presence or a recount of the way God deserted men, since the Latin verse whites out the “ascendit ad caelos” of the Creed with “descendit ad inferna” (“ascend to Heavens” vs. “descend to Hell”). The sense of obliterated humanity is further enlarged on by the second track of the album, “Angelik”, which dwells significantly on the destitute state of mankind, and on the absence of spiritual enlightenment. Harsh English verse is softened by French interlude, in what seems to be an invitation to listen to the voices of infernal creatures, to whom the ears of the living have been sealed shut.

“Seventh Heaven” reverses the infernal perspective to one of redeemed humanity, however entangled, in an ideal of a celestial plenitude. In a push/pull motion of life and death, beautifully rendered in music and verse, the distance between the clarity of Heaven and the mirage of Hell is measured in human misery, to which people have to submit relentlessly. “Under My Skin”,  an energetic and complex track, spurs the album to new velocity and rhythm, that make it a potential dancefloor favorite for 2011, for its urgency and feeling of running through the numberless, scorching doors of Hell on one’s way out to the world.

The ensuing “The French Kiss of Death” illustrates the same pandemonium of a world deserted by its creator and left to its own devices to oscillate permanently between beliefs of a better or worse afterlife. Since humans are the only creatures to invest spiritually in the end of their lifecycle, the image of death as a sensuous last kiss that plunges one into eternal sleep strikes as a style feature that combines alluringly with the female vocals and the hard, pulsating instrument of this track. Though pertaining to the religious realm of hagiography, “Stigma” is rendered in AD INFERNA’s vision in the homonymous track as a subtle interplay between unholy temptations and possession and the quest of purity that stigmata usually evince in the believer. An immense, communal and tormented soul in quest of redemption or even holiness through suffering,  humanity seeks privilege in its scars and takes comfort in the thought of spiritual accession through suffering; a thought that roughly illustrates the history of all saints of all religions.

The non-denominational belief of a decayed humanity is permanent with the next track, as well. “Sex Spell”, which conveys via numerous invectives the belief in disease, slime, injustice, inhumanity, torture, anger and hate – with pain as a common denominator, in a never-ending struggle of man to transcend this. Coupling sex and death as similar instinctual ways of bodies to simulate souls, the track, which adds to the album edit numerous remix renditions, is a profound, and at the same time, why not, arousing depiction of what human pettiness can do in order to claim even momentarily spiritual superiority.

The uniform religious vocabulary of the album ensues with a spiriting “Resurrection”. While resurrection plays a major role in people’s understanding of Christianity, AD INFERNA’s “Resurrection” stays true to the title of the album, leaving nothing equivocal: today’s resurrections and sacrifices of all sorts are futile and in the end, “There Is no Cure”. The rich imagery of the track, as well as its very versatile sound are two main reasons why the track was selected by AD INFERNA to be remixed in their late 2010/early 2011 competition. “The One”, a previously unannounced track of the album plays with the same persisting feeling of  post-apocalyptical world, where human essence meets its rightful penance and reward. A very potent melody, “The One” wraps up the album in a very artistic manner. If the initial “Presence” dwelled on the all-being of God, “The One” plays in a similar lore with the divinity’s uniqueness, so as to run full-circle around human existence as dictated by God.

A very spiritual and enlightening material, “There Is no Cure” evinces numerous genius tracks and creates a very pertinent, and appealing imagery in a universe of dichotomies and core antagonisms. Following the ideal scenario of a very solid composition to back up a very grave and rich world of creation and destruction, “There Is No Cure” stands out as a very mature album, and one VIVA MUSIC highly recommends to dark electro music aficionados.

Tracklist:

“There Is no Cure” – the Album

“There Is no Cure” – the Remixes (tentative tracklist)

Read further:

*