Country of origin:Germany

Location:Bremen

Status:Active

Formed in:2014

 

Genre:Atmospheric Black/Funeral Doom Metal

Lyrical themes:End of Existence, Space, Abstract

Current label:Unsigned/independent

Years active:2014-present

While I mostly know Bremen for its hardcore/crust scene, here we are treated to a pretty neat outlier. Imperceptum have fully embraced the whole 'space black metal' thing, and The Eternal Path to Nothingness successfully conveys a spacey atmosphere. Imperceptum plays with both side of space, the cold ever-stretching vacuum of nothingness and also the beautiful wonders of the galaxy. While perhaps a bit overlong and relatively samey, this is a solid intergalactic missile of material for the young one man black metal band.

I'll get this out of the way quickly: if you are looking for riffs don't bother with this. Eternal Path has a singular obsession with cultivating a spacey atmosphere. For the most part, this is successfully achieved. One listen and you can tell that its creator is definitely a massive nerd about space shit. As for the atmosphere, I'd put it somewhere between Darkspace and side-project Sun of the Blind. Darkspace deal in an oppressive representation of the cold vastness of space, with occasional more violent moments that feel like you're being sucked into a black hole. Sun of the Blind, however, are much more likely to conjure images of radiant nebulae. They take a much more psychedelic route and have moments of beauty you'd never find in a million years of Darkspace releases. While probably a bit closer to Darkspace with the cold, distant feeling (although it never gets nearly as oppressive and doesn't have any big riff moments), there's a lot of light shimmering below the surface. This tends to be pretty subtle; some effects-laden guitar drones in the distance, glistening ambient sections ect.

Instrumentally, this is all pretty simple, which is completely appropriate for the style he's etching out. The riffs are generally slow and impossibly groggy. They function more as the backbone for the atmosphere than anything. While I wouldn't quite say this makes more sense as a dark ambient album like I would with the debut of fellow spacey black metal band Aureole, the same principle applies. The drum machine is simple: a steady cold mechanical clank. It fits the atmosphere but can get a little boring after a while. The vocals are quite cavernous, somewhere between what you'd expect from black metal and funeral doom. Which brings me to my next point - there's a pretty tangible funeral doom vibe throughout this album. Eternal Path path is SSSLLLOOOWWW, often drifting forward at a glacial plod. A long running time makes sense for something so slow and atmospheric, but breaching the hour mark was probably overkill. Length isn't a huge issue, but this probably would have been better with ten or fifteen minutes shaved off.

While certainly not on the level of Darkspace, Alrakis or some of Mare Cognitum's better material, Imperceptum have offered up a successful spacey black metal (pretty much its own microgenre now - it definitely does have a particular sound) album with The Eternal Path to Nothingness. While the album is wholly centered around atmosphere, it's a potent one. Probably not the best album for the uninitiated, but if you get off on that space black shit, this will probably scratch that itch.