Hailing from Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania, Inquisitor were formed at the beginning of this century, initially as a technical and eccentric Symphonic / Dark Metal band. Throughout the years, however, their aural style did permanently evolve, but the lyrical approach maintained its bizarre thematic ideas: metaphysics, esoterica, the search for the Inner Eye, empiric data, epistemology, identity and perception.
In 2010, Forgotten Path Records were born, and the first release on their roster was the debut full length for Inquisition, The Quantum Theory Of Id. Both band and label did join forces once more in order to release Inquisitor’s sophomore album, Clinamen │ Episteme. It comes in a very interesting edition, seen from the visual-artistic side. It’s not only the paintings that are ‘attractive’, but the cover, for instance, comes with that almost secret and hologram-alike seal. More eccentricity comes from the lyrical side, which divides the album into two chapters (indeed called Clinamen and έπιστήμη aka Episteme), each of them consisting of three compositions that clock forty four minutes. But the sonic side too is quite eccentric, bizarre, challenging.
The album brings a hugely technical and quite progressive form of Post-Black Metal, being based on very fast rhythms and dissonant structures. Every composition (lasting in between seven and nine minutes) do very a lot. There are so many changes in speed and structure; each single minute there’s something else to experience, often presented by ingenious breaks or weird loops and hooks. But the good thing is the organic and fluent cohesion, despite the eccentric excerpts and passages. Especially within the faster pieces, the discordance of the band’s progressive execution reaches the highest peaks. During the less fast parts, there are quite some enjoyable Nordic-oriented constructions, adding that timeless strength. The band, somehow, also succeeds to add some drama, rather theatrical than grotesque, into their creations. The more Avant-garde songs are characterised especially by almost funky bass lines and jazzy drum patterns, while the staccato riffs refer to the Prog part of the album especially. Quite bizarre, yet typifying the own identity of this release, is the addition of piano within a couple of chapters, as well as the melodic vocal lines. About the vocals; these ones are mainly blackened-screaming, yet of a truly intense, gut-spitting kind, with some lower growls and grunts in addition.
Clinamen │Episteme turns out to be quite a complex masterpiece that deserves (and needs) attention, yet also persuasion and endurance. I’d like to recommend to try to listen to the last track, Peri Hermeneias, at first, because this song is sort of a symbiosis of everything you might find on this album. And if you appreciate that track, you will adore the whole album.