Inner Thought

Perspectives (Dwell)
by Scott Hefflon

Innovative death metal – it can’t be said with a straight face. Inner Thought is definitely a fine arrangement of tried and true elements from a wide variety of heavy sub-genres, but whether that is considered “innovative” is a matter of, well, perspective. Perspectives shape changes through death, doom, industrial, and thrash, using select devices of expression of each, and using them well. The movie dialogue samples are used sparingly, the keyboards are usually subtle doom, not a real spotlight, and with the exception of a few moments of cheap techno, they’re unobtrusive and merely support the rhythm. Likewise with the drum programming. The sound is cold and mechanical, yet never goes into the too-fast-to-be-human realm. With the exception of the hand claps in “Skin and Nails,” you’d never really know it wasn’t live. Now, by process of elimination, we get to the focal point of Inner Thought: guitars and vocals. Guitarist Bobby Sadzak has delved through the archives of many heavy genres, selected his favorite riffs and styles from each, and strung them together like a multi-lingual speaker. With the exception of the aforementioned cheap synth sound in the bridge of “Rack of Lethargy” (for some reason an “emphasis track” – sounds like a first stab at industrial), most of the songs mix the crisp production quality of the ’90s with the feel of the original styles: early Slayer chugs, late ’80s Kreator fills, contemporary doom melodies, and various, more unidentifiable influences from power metal, neo-death, and tribal/industrial. Vocally, Dennis Balesdent can hold his own in both demon growl mode and screamcore fashion. Occasional layers of female vocals during the dramatic, pounding transitions only help fill out an already full sound. Considering Perspectives was recorded and mastered in ’94 (but not released until ’96), Inner Thought may well be innovative in cross-breeding multiple genres of heavy music.