Desolate Plains – The Inexhaustible Imperfection of the World

Progressive Metal has always been one of my favourite subgenres of metal (to whatever degree you can consider prog a genre). And as I am quite young, I was quickly drawn into the developments of the time, being sucked into the inception of djent with bands like Intervals, Periphery and TesseracT, and subsequently into metalcore. This made me a huge fan of polished hi-fi mixes, and I always favored a modern mix over a raw, old-school metal sound. But I am currently going through a rearticulation of my preferences as I have been finding myself enjoying raw mixes and old-school sounds more and more. I am still very much a modern prog fan, and I will likely always be, but I’m starting to understand the appeal found in classic death metal and old-school thrash. Bands like Desolate Plains are part of the reason why. “The Inexhaustible Imperfection of the World” is their latest album, and it is probably the first time since Metallica’s “Black Album” that I heard a thrash metal sound and thought to myself, “The mix is perfect”. On my life’s timeline, that is about 13 years, not 30, but the point still stands. And this is why I am kicking off this review by talking about the sound and production value of this album.

What always bugged me about old-school mixes was a perceived lack of effort and incoherence in the sound. I felt like in an attempt to sound “raw”, bands compromised the clarity of their sound, making the instruments hard to tell apart, and sometimes even lost the punch and attack. But on Desolate Plains’ album, that problem isn’t there. Whether this is because the mix really is that good, or just because I’m developing an ear for it is hard to tell. But what I love about this album is that despite the raw sound, it has a ton of attack on the guitar and drums, and the instruments are very clearly defined! It nails the balance between sounding organic and ‘real’ without compromising clarity and attack. And that makes for the most convincing emotional delivery that the music can provide.

Desolate Plains – The Mark

Now let’s look at the music itself. I already mentioned a “thrash metal sound” and I honestly feel like the foundation of this album is rooted in thrash metal, which is a subgenre of metal I am not particularly fond of. However, it is not that straightforward with regards to genre. You could label it as progressive, or even technical death metal if you wanted, and I still feel like that could be a valid label. What this album does excellently, is navigating the desired emotional landscape by using the appropriate musical tools, and so, it ends up dipping its toes in a bunch of different but adjacent metal sounds ranging between thrash, death and even some traces of black and doom metal. The drum foundation plays a huge role in forming the perception of what each song is. If you look at ‘The Curse of Individuality’, you think “this is a thrash metal song” and the drum groundwork and snare placement is the main reason to that as far as I am concerned, although the vocal pacing plays a role as well. ‘Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress’ by contrast, comes across more like a death metal, perhaps even melodic death metal song, and I feel like the double-bass focused drum part with less jolted or disrupted elements is what drives that shift. And when the blasting starts is when I really start thinking of technical death metal (see ‘A Leaf’s Journey’). Circling through these approaches and alternating songs with different overall pacing and writing approaches enables the album to stay interesting and surprising throughout all 11 songs. I feel I must give a special shoutout to Eleni Nota’s drum delivery, because more so than just delivering the performance that the songs need, she is an absolute beast when it comes to technique, and her playfulness with fills and details is off the charts. She also does an excellent job with grooving over more relaxed or mid-paced parts (‘Shadows’, ‘Pathology of Time’).

Building on such a powerful rhythmic foundation, guitarist and composer Lampros Potamianos dives into his arsenal of riffs and melodies to create some of the most expressive guitar parts I’ve heard in quite a while. The riffs match not only the pacing and energy levels of the drum parts but also build a coherent emotion to fit the pace. I think ‘Interislander’ is the best example of just how well an emotion can be extracted out of a rhythmic section. The entire song is progressive and disruptive, sounding like it’s frantically stumbling forward through a sense of alert, agitation and anxiety. The dissonance in the guitar riffs as well as the maddening swirly lead parts, match that energy perfectly. This track might be my new favourite musical seizure. The approach to guitar writing seen here, as well as on ’A Leaf’s Journey’ has a very gallop-heavy approach that reminded me of the disrupted sound in early Gojira. But there are also songs where the choice of chord progression and melodies creates a dark and somber tone (‘Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress’) or an evil and dominant aura (‘Shadows, Pathology of Time’). And the solo sections are excellent. Only a few songs on the album have actual solos (‘The Mark’, ‘Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress’), but sprinkles of lead guitar are noticeable on almost all songs. The bass parts don’t stand out that much. They just do the job in keeping the grumbly groundwork going, but a few moments give the bass some love as well (see ‘Interislander’ again).

Desolate Plains – Shadows

Then we get to the vocal delivery. Aliki Katriou is at this point one of my favourite singers in metal, not necessarily because I like her vocal tone or style the most, but because what she does is always a perfect match for the instrumental context she finds herself in, and suitable for the emotion she aims to deliver. The screams parts on this album are most satisfying due to the pacing and impact more so than the actual vocal tone (although the tone and pitch is spot on as well). I think the headbanging riff in ‘Pathology of Time’ with the vocals following the same pace as the instrumental groundwork, and with the excellent rhymes in the lyrics must be the most impactful moment on the album, and again, it’s because of how the vocals are fitted against the music more so than just how good the vocal delivery is. Throughout the entire album, the vocal parts don’t just take the forefront, but they complement the instrumental ensemble beautifully. Another example I must spotlight are the clean sections in ‘Unsustainable Psychological Landscapes’, where the vocal line and melodic guitar line complement each other beautifully. The more I think about the vocals, the instrument that usually stands out, the more I notice how all parts of this album are actually made to work together. I will, however, leave the context behind for a second to focus on some of Aliki’s greatest strengths as a vocalist. Those are range (see falsetto section in ‘A Leaf’s Journey’ and ‘Shadows’), pitch accuracy (see THE ENTIRE ALBUM) and pronunciation (see the closing on Shadows). The variety in scream sounds is also extraordinary, covering various tones, textures and ranges that I do not possess the knowledge to properly analyze, but only to fangirl about.

Another thing that surprises me is that despite most songs being three to four minutes long and very “in your face”, the album develops quite an atmospheric component as well. This is partly due to the superb melody writing, and partly due to intros, outros and interludes of clean guitar, piano, wind and string instruments and even spoken word (‘The Mark’). Some of these work better than others for me, as I am often bothered by the lack of rhythmic continuity in a song when the atmospheric part hits (see ‘Pathology of Time’) but this is not always the case. The title track has a smooth development from the intro into the full band sound.

To wrap up such an excellently written and delivered album, we get a gloriously depressing lyrical approach, with most songs struggling through inner turmoil, hopelessness, behavioral incoherence, loss of control, regret, fear and just about every wholesome emotion under the sun. So, if you too would like to dive into dopamine induced hopelessness then I invite you to enter “The Inexhaustible Imperfection of The World”, for you already became a part of it when you were born! There is no escape from your nature! Mwaghahahaha!!

Track List:

1. The Curse Of Individuality (03:56)
2. Mirroring the Abyss (03:21)
3. Unsustainable Psychological Landscapes (03:01)
4. Pathology of Time (04:30)
5. Interislander (02:26)
6. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (03:16)
7. The Mark (04:34)
8. A Leaf’s Journey (03:13)
9. The Inexhaustible Imperfection of the World (03:50)
10. The Emotional Plague (04:38)
11. Shadows (03:22)