Ingrina closes its trilogy.
Begun in 2018 and continued in 2020, the third episode took much longer to complete for Florian Compain (guitar/vocals), Adrien Delpeuch (bass/vocals), Raphael Durand (drums/vocals), Nicolas Guerrier (guitar/vocals), and Antonin Le Coz (guitar/vocals). Welcome to Nåværende Lys, illustrated by Synckop, released on the Southern Medication Time Records and À Tant Rêver Du Roi labels.
The album opens with Time, a composition that starts off very calm but suddenly explodes, plunging us headfirst into heavy, cosmic post-metal inhabited by ghostly voices. The rhythm slows down without warning, giving us a little respite while letting the voices wander as it blazes in the background, delivering dissonance and oppression to navigate us to Out, a much shorter but also more direct track that offers a very solid initial strike, but also more concise airy passages. The atmosphere is more tense, but the band gives us a breather before joining Loosen, which starts off gently and lets its effects color the guitars before the saturation eventually covers the mix and gives it a slightly dirty Sludge feel, while remaining anchored in its cold heaviness interspersed with silence. The last part is much more aggressive, raw, and imposing, contrasting with the first moments of Grips, which allow us to catch our breath and digest their progression until this new moment of calm, which eventually becomes anxious, then energetic once again before naturally running out of steam. Laws then follows suit, offering its vaporous and ultimately trip-hop touches that blend perfectly with the rough sound of the few riffs that frame the calm, followed by And All The Deadly Frontiers, which draws on all the band’s influences to construct its own riffs, ranging from a tranquil tableau to darker, haunted places filled with terrifying voices that barely pull us out of this hypnotic trance as the sound crackles more and more and then stops.
I discovered Ingrina with this album, and its richness quickly won me over. Nåværende Lys knows exactly where he’s taking us, and even if everything can sometimes seem blurry and hazy when listening, you just have to trust him to understand.
85/100