Published: March 23, 2017

It’s been four and a half, five years since Netra released Sørbyen, seven years since Mélancolie Urbaine, and in some ways nothing has changed. Netra is still one man, playing a strange mixture of black metal, trip-hop, ambient, and a few other things. In some ways everything has changed.

Nothing ever felt forced with the first two albums, but on Ingrats everything feels like it belongs together even more. The songwriting has improved, and not even drastically. It’s been given just enough of a boost that all aspects that make Netra such a unique band are given their times to shine. For example, the pure DSBM moments of “Everything’s Fine”; the 80’s goth and 90’s EDM of “Live With It”; the saxophone on “Don’t Keep Me Waiting”; the beautiful ambient keyboards layered over fast double-kicks on “Paris or Me”; the list goes on.

Therein lies the beauty of what Netra is for me. It’s the controlled chaos of depressive black metal reined in with the steadiness of trip-hop and EBM. It’s slow and dark, truly melancholic and morose. It’s like slashing your wrists in a 4/4 beat. And it leaves such beautiful wounds upon your heart. Ingrats is a real masterpiece of black metal, for fans of the genre that like to watch it progress and further itself while still being true to what makes it black metal.