The Parisians Inborn Suffering come to the rendezvous with their second full length six years after the promising Wordless Hope; the band of young hopefuls, which showed flashes of quality in a death doom context still made of some naiveté and a personal stylistic figure to be found, has definitely matured by reappearing on the scene with a splendid work like this Regression To Nothingness. The transalpine band’s main gift is their ability to evoke morbidly decadent feelings thanks to a remarkable technical expertise and the interpretative charge of vocalist Laurent, who, between growls, recited parts and heartbreaking screams manages to perfectly convey the sense of anguish that pervades every track on this album. The only criticism that can be made to Inborn Suffering is that of having produced an album of perhaps excessive length; in fact, both Another World and the title track are good episodes but not up to the standards of their predecessors, while Self Contempt Kings nevertheless closes the album in a great way, bringing it back to the qualitative heights to which we had turned an ear in its first part. Slumber Asylum opens the album, foreshadowing the crescendo that will characterize the opening poker of tracks on Regression…, passing through the splendid Born Guilty to arrive at the majestic Grey Eden and Apotheosis (never was the title more apt), tracks in which the guitar draws melodies of rare inspiration and the band reaches its compositional heights. The French band, among other merits, possesses the ability to draw, as is normal, on the greats of the past without resembling anyone in particular; if the influence that is most noticeable is perhaps that of Swallow The Sun, this remains, however, confined more to the melodic attitude than to the actual development of the compositions. Regression To Nothingness is yet another target hit by Solitude as well as this 2012’s further gift to the admirers of a genre, perhaps snubbed, but capable of continuously producing realities of absolute value such as Inborn Suffering.

2012 – Solitude Productions