The band Inquisition was formed in 1988 in Cali, Colombia by Dagon. The band started as a thrash metal act, and in 1994 evolved into raw black metal.
In 1996, Dagon left Colombia and moved back to the United States to continue Inquisition and search for a new drummer. That same year Dagon met Incubus, who joined the band on drums and the creation of their debut full length album began. This line-up has remained stable for more than fifteen years and is now seen as the classic Inquisition line-up.
INQUISITION style of black metal involves slow, deep and dark riffing combined with sudden tempo changes to faster sections based around blast beats and high-speed riffing; at times adding melodic solos. The classic Inquisition sound incorporates a combination of early era thrash metal-influenced riffing with darker and more chaotic black metal, primarily involving fast, tremolo picked minor-key guitar riffs, thus creating the trademark “Inquisition sound”.
ABSU is a metal band from Plano, Texas in the United States. Their demos and first album leaned towards death metal, but evolved more towards a mix of black metal and thrash metal by their second album and beyond. They also incorporate various elements of celtic, folk, jazz fusion, progressive rock and psychedelia into their overall sound but without compromising their trademark speed and ferocity. Lyrical themes vary from myths and legends, magic, weaponry, sorcery, alchemy, astrology, cosmology and beyond.
Since their formation in 2014, Uada’s rise has been meteoric. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, the band quietly released their debut album, Devoid of Light in 2016 through and word of mouth quickly built from there: here was BLACK METAL writ large, classic and uncompromising but brimming with power, soul, and artistry, and all without bluster and bathos. Uada’s debut album surely expanded the lexicon of the melodic black metal idiom, and the underground took notice.
Two years later came Cult of a Dying Sun, whereby the band further perfected their craft and compellingly took to the stage, their performances garnering as much acclaim as their recordings. During all this, more than the underground started to take notice; the name Uada was on the tongues of folks usually reticent to black metal.
In 2020, almost effortlessly, Uada fully perfect their craft and delivered Djinn. Simply titled but by no means simple in construction nor execution, Djinn builds upon the increasingly ambitious songwriting of its no-less-considerable predecessor, but pushes their dazzling artistry into nearly Technicolor landscapes of the Beyond.
