Indukti

Idmen

Written by: TL on 24/08/2009 14:54:24

It goes without saying that, of the promos that get sent to us for review, some are always more popular arrivals than others. One of those others would be "Idmen", the debut LP from Indukti. A record that, when I posted it to out internal staff forum for writers to sign up for, provoked nothing but a deafening silence from my colleagues. Personally, from the name, title and a brief look at the cover art, I expected it to be some sort of generic industrial metal, and seeing as the other writers seemingly had equally unflattering preconceptions, I had to face the fact that I would probably be doing it myself.

What a delight it was to find then, that when I finally got around to listening to it, "Idmen" turned out to be nothing like what I've expected. Like other bands have proven lately, the Polish music scene is one we all to often unjustly underestimate here, and Indukti seem to follow that indication. Home to five madme.. I mean musicians, the band have produced in "Idmen" a vastly ambitious and progressive post-metal landscape for its listener to explore. One that calls bands to mind like Tool, Mastodon and The Ocean (at least for me, unexperienced as I must admit to being when it comes to this end of the genre universe).

Just by the mentioning of those band names, I'm sure you must already have a clue of what's going on. Dark, brooding songs, clocking in mostly between six and ten minutes, with eerie sounds of all kinds added, which I won't dare to predict the origin of. The band doesn't include a keyboardist, but they do count a violinist, so maybe some weird effects have been used on either the violins or one of the guitars to produce the strangeness? In any case, "Idmen" is a mostly instrumental affair, which progresses seamlessly from quirky, sinister atmospheric parts, to crashing, crunchy riff assaults, and you could in fact be tempted into thinking no vocals are involved, partly because no member is credited for vocals on the band's myspace, but also because the first track, "Sansara" deducts the first eight minutes of play time entirely without singing.

On tracks like "Tusan Homichi Tuvota" and "And Who's The God Now?" however, a vocalist does rear his head, and on one hand, it is a tremendous compliment to the band's sound, because whoever sings, he does it with a delivery that's varied and charismatic enough to prove that he's no amateur. There is one small problem with his contribution though, and I'll just put it out there without resorting to subtlety: The lyrics on this baby are just flat out ridiculous. There may very well be an overall sense of something tribal to this record, but, to name an example, the whole story about the field mouse that decides to kill the hawk to help the villagers (or whatever it is) in "Tusan Homichi Tuvota" is just too hard to take seriously. Even if the chanted "Hawk kills chicken! Hawk kills rabbits!" is one of the record's catchier moments, you can't but be baffled by the melodramatic delivery of "some of the people laughed/they said that dirty little mouse/was crazy to even try/but others began to wonder/if that mouse had some great power!"

It's a bit of a shame really, because it drags down a very impressive work of composition down to a level where you as a listener have a hard time taking it seriously. Given how Indukti have otherwise managed to craft some instrumental music that is much more accessible than what is the norm (due to some more sensible and restrained transitions and progressions than what is the norm), I'd say their stuff deserves some much better lyricism, and I hope they'll get that for their next outing. Till then, they aren't quite justified as an alternative to the big names in similar genres.

Download: And Who's The God Now?, Tusan Homichi Tuvota,
For The Fans Of: Tool, The Ocean, Mastodon
Listen: myspace.com/indukti

Release Date 27.07.2009
SPV / InsideOut

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