Inexistenz - Erfundene Welten (2013)

With all the fuzz being about Post-Black Metal releases these days, today we have a soul crushing Depressive Black Metal album in “Erfundene Welten”. Being the sophomore release of this Slovenian one-man battle unit, we are quite surprised at the maturity behind this release. Presenting six tracks of painful Black Metal influenced by Doom and more atmospheric bands, this release should appeal to fans of acts like Dodsferd and Austere.

Opening with the very raw and nihilistic “Verlohren in der Neer”, Inexistenz really sets the bar high for this album with a very Doomy pace and haunting vocals. The drums are quite slow-paced and perfectly craft an extremely melancholic mood. The riffing is quite standard and very fitting for the genre. Things pick up a bit more in the first half of “Erfundene Welten” and they are nicely halted by a lush atmospheric interlude.

The atmospheric filler “Mitternachts Gedanken” is just nice separation before the next onslaught of aggression and should have been incorporated into the following track. “Erkenntnis” is where you get a more raw and desolate sound thanks to the vocals and distorted guitars, but also the drums sound a bit amateurish here, but they somewhat add to the excruciatingly painful atmosphere of the album. As an interesting note, there are some Shoegaze-ish guitars at the end of the song, which might indicate the band will move to those territories in the future.

“Zu misslingen bestimmt” made us have some mixed feelings about it because it starts with some awful ‘blast-beats’, but it then explodes into atmospheric brilliance around the 3:40 mark, and then it goes to shit again. We understand showcasing raw emotion, but a band can do that without sucking. Closing with the mellow atmospheric song “Belanglos” we are left in a very bleak and depressing mood…. exactly what we expected from this release.

Overall, “Erfundene Welten” is one of those albums that is 80% very good and 20% filler stuff thrown together last minute. We do think that Inexistenz has potential, but better attention to polishing songs is needed. There are great songs and moments in this release and we wish that this one-man band matures even more musically over the years to reach its full potential. If you like extremely limited and quite entertaining Depressive Black Metal, pick this one up and add it to your obscure music collection.

Release: February 25th, 2013

Genre: Depressive Black Metal

Country: Slovenia