Joanna As they prepare for the release of their highly anticipated new album, New Heaven, Inter Arma have released the album’s third single “Desolation’s Harp.” A transmission from an abyss of mental illness, the song showcases the push-and-pull between finesse and force that’s the album’s hallmark. Guitarist Trey Dalton comments, “‘Desolation’s Harp’ is basically our take on a straightforward ‘metal’ song, something very riff forward. We wanted to write something that felt like us but compact and edited without sacrificing the nuance or complexity. It has a lot of the hallmarks of us – slow riff over blast beat, discordance, and harmony guitars— but in a more concise final form. I’m stoked on our flirtation with brevity, and we hope you are too.”
Set for release Friday, April 26 on Relapse Records, New Heaven is a compelling testament to perseverance, top to bottom. Its thicket of ever-dense layers of doom, death, and black metal occasionally let bits of light slip in, fleeting reminders to keep going amid the tumult. The record marks a sharp turn for Inter Arma, showcasing some of the most extreme and angular songwriting the band has ever laid bare. Known for their cinematic take on sludgy, extremely cavernous and borderline psychedelic Metal, the Richmond band broadens their dynamics by seesawing between piledriving momentum and swirling oblivion. New Heaven crushes and conquers, and illustrates what Inter Arma can truly be.
Though New Heaven is indeed another triumph for the band, it is not a triumphant album, meant to offer some glib or naïve assurance that everything will be fine.
They call it the ‘Inter Arma Curse’: for nearly two decades, the band has emerged as one of the most inspired and fearless acts in or around American metal. They’ve also endured an endless parade of complications, hurdles, and slights: visa problems in Russia, stolen passports in Europe, unexpected member turmoil in their ranks, accidents and near death experiences, and a pervasive paradoxical sense that they have either been too metal or not metal enough. It’s been forever Sisyphean, except that Inter Arma has sporadically crested the hill to make a series of visionary albums.
As New Heaven started to take shape, the curse roared to life. Worldwide pandemic that squashed tours and writing sessions aside, Inter Arma churned through four bassists before finding salvation in Joel Moore, a guitar-and-engineering whiz who had never before played bass in a band. With the addition of Moore, drummer T.J. Childers admits that New Heaven features some of the kind of music Inter Arma could have never executed. Listen for the uncanny keyboards wedged between Paparo and the band, for the ways Steven Russell and Trey Dalton coil and collide with Moore, for Childers’ way of slipping some Southern soul into what borders on truly brutal prog. Paparo’s keen and empathetic lyrics explore arduous facets of the human experience, from innocent victims of war, to addiction, and social apathy. New Heaven is a record about enduring brambles and curses and lasting long enough to make something profound, honest, and even affirming about it all every now and again…
Catch Inter Arma on tour supporting Pallbearer this July and August.
Inter Arma, on tour:
June 7 Richmond, VA @ Richmond Music Hall
July 11 St. Louis, MI @ Off Broadway ^
July 13 Denver, CO @ Gothic Theater ^
July 15 Calgary, AB @ Dickens ^
July 16 Edmonton, AB @ The Starlite Room ^
July 18 Vancouver, WA @ Rickshaw ^
July 19 Seattle, WA @ Substation ^
July 20 Portland, OR @ Star Theater ^
July 23 Sacramento, CA @ Harlows ^
July 24 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall ^
July 26 Santa Cruz @ The Catalyst Atrium ^
July 27 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick ^
July 28 Los Angeles, CA @ Terragram Ballroom ^
July 29 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom ^
July 30 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar ^
August 1 Dallas, TX @ Trees ^
August 2 Austin, TX @ The Parish ^
August 3 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall ^
^ w/ Pallbearer
% w/ Sonja & Triac
New Heaven, track listing:
New Heaven
Violet Seizures
Desolation’s Harp
Endless Grey
Gardens in the Dark
The Children the Bombs Overlooked
Concrete Cliffs
Forest Service Road Blues
