Published: June 30, 2023

And the last one for this week, brings us None with Inevitable, their latest long player that represents their fourth full length effort since 2017. Their approach is to simply devastate with atmospheric and depressive black metal, which wasn’t on my bingo card for reviews this late in the year. Digging a little deeper, there is two members, both listed as Anonymous, and this latest offering has been likened to the final stage of grief and from the outset you can immediately see why they would say this. Each of the songs is lengthy, with the shortest My Gift running at 6 minutes.

Never Came Home starts with a building guitar part that barely registers for the first two minutes or so. Just this piece is haunting, and softly done until it comes in properly with that black metal overload of guitar and drums that seems to have been squeezed together to provide a wall of sound. The main part is that guitar line that started it off, that is the focus here and it anchors the whole thing. This is certainly dark in its feel and rises to a euphoric climax, dropping back to an almost muted melody line.

This is certainly a great start, and they continue with Alone, Where I Can See. This starts on the front foot, but with a controlled almost ponderous riff that favours the buzz saw sound in lieu of the clear melody lines from Never... as they just choke the life out any light that may have come from track one. This one conjures up the blackest period of mourning, of the bone deep pain that is associated with that and with just these first two songs they absolutely nail the atmospheric but cold approach. It also shows that they are not afraid to make the music that they feel representative of who they are, and the ending section here shows that in spades.

However, as A Reason To Be continues this depressive journey there starts to be a bit of fatigue setting in. This one comes out on the attack, but in an almost similar measure as Alone, and has just enough sonic differences to make this a companion piece (of sorts) to that track. I’m not sure if that was intended, but the melodies and attack are almost the same. This is not to say its poor, but with this music there has to be something that grabs you constantly, especially if the run time is 10 minutes plus. My Gift barely registered with me, this is an almost silent, whispered track that seemed to go nowhere and ultimately really put the brakes on proceedings and puts pressure on the last two songs to build something to make it all worthwhile.

Locked, Empty Room starts with a piece of melody that just doesn’t go anywhere and just hangs there, plodding away to its end. Its mournful and at the same time fits in so well with the overall feel of the album, especially with the spoken word at the end but it feels as though it is an idea stretched too far and by the time that Rest chimes in with the admittedly beautiful chords and arrangement, I’m somewhat done in. But something exceptional happens and the song just explodes with a wall of sound – distortion vs melody with the black metal delivery sat on top, pulling it together with a slow, measured percussion that grows until there is a stripped back refrain which makes way for a more urgent attack, not in speed but in approach. This is built for emotional pay off and you can imagine the release of writing and then recording this piece, the effect it would have on them.

Going down the full honesty route, my musical taste sits more on that brighter side (of death) as opposed to the full blackness that is presented here. Personally, I think they could have done without the instrumental and there was a drop in momentum that sapped me and made it a slog to get to the end. The songs are haunting, and beautifully put together but are aimed for consumption within a very specific genre. For me, its not one I would necessarily dip my toes into again. 6/10