Style: Progressive metal, post-metal (mixed vocals, mostly clean)
Recommended for fans of: Early Leprous, The Ocean, Mogwai
Country: Netherlands
Release date: 4 April 2025
A handful of phrasings and a trail of misattributions surround one extraordinarily metal writing concept: you have to be willing to kill your darlings. Those beautiful sentences you’ve crafted, in perfect prose, that end up adding no value to your piece? Kill them. That concept you fleshed out in a rigorously detailed paragraph, only to realize it doesn’t serve the narrative? Drop the axe. The unnecessary, dramatic list of examples when a simple explanation would have done? You gotta ki… wait!
Whether literary or musical, we have a hard time doing away with our creative expressions, even if they no longer serve a purpose once given context. Imagine being a young band, having spent years putting your ideas into music, piecing components together into songs, and rehearsing them till they become part of your being. As you all progress as songwriters and musicians, and finally begin forming an album, could you do away with those precious ideas that don’t quite fit anymore? Do you kill your darlings, or look desperately for a way to keep them?
Well, you know where I’m going with this: let’s turn to We Are Solitude, the debut album of progressive post-metallers Inner Cabala. Although I don’t have a way into their collective psyche, Inner Cabala appear to have a hard time letting go. We Are Solitude is an eclectic mix of tracks sounding of slightly subdued, modern progressive metal and relatively light post-metal—like the less boisterous child of Bilateral-era Leprous and The Ocean. Except, the child is having a bit of trouble growing up and finding its personality.
Amidst this search for itself, We Are Solitude is most effective at its simplest. In a concise four minutes, standout track “Feathers” flows cogently from a catchy, winding intro riff to a punchy verse, and then into an energetic chorus. After a couple of repetitions, a seamless bridge leads naturally to a massive breakdown that ends the track. Bravo! This streamlined approach works well for Inner Cabala, who have a strong knack for melody and riff writing. “Hollow” follows a similar pattern, featuring a two-part chorus that, in addition to being a total earworm, is written excellently—the perfect mix of pop sensibilities and progressive instrumentation. But the track’s momentum is stopped dead by an acoustic bridge slapped right in the center without warning. The bridge isn’t especially interesting, and it doesn’t serve a broader compositional purpose; as with many passages, it sounds like something the band just couldn’t quite bring themselves to scrap.
Although the tracks are dynamic, they often fail to build tension that leads to a cathartic payoff or steadily intensify an idea until a tidal wave of sound has formed—staples of well executed post-metal. Typically, a disconnected soft part is followed by a disconnected heavy or fast part, giving a gas-brake feel rather than a smooth oscillation among peaks and valleys. “Of Time Rejoiced” is the worst offender, full of interesting ideas welded haphazardly into a track that jerks the listener around with passages that may as well be from different songs entirely. To be sure, We Are Solitude does hold flashes of brilliance. In the last minute and a half of “Semblance,” a layered, emotional refrain is accentuated by a somber but infectious guitar melody, showcasing the best of Inner Cabala’s post- aspects. And the entire second half of the closer “Mediocrity Divides II” is a proggy trip through big, sludgy riffs that ultimately resolve with a nod to the album’s opening track, bringing We Are Solitude full circle. But both of these tracks suffer from upfront bloat—the former spending far too long plodding toward its resolution, and the latter having acoustic portions that bring it to a standstill rather than lead toward the climactic ending.
With its numerous stripped-back, softer passages, We Are Solitude leans heavily on the vocal performance to fill open space and provide emotional lift. However, perhaps to mask some limitations in ability, a fuzz covers the vocals through the entire album, eschewing a natural feel and instead providing a compressed, processed one. This incessant vocal effect grows tedious quickly, and the album’s heartfelt sections suffer the most, as a slightly distorted rasp covers movements where an organic voice is sorely needed. “Crippled Reality,” primarily a ballad that feels disconnected from the rest of the album to begin with, is a particularly tough listen for this reason, but every track would benefit greatly from more natural vocals.
Ultimately, We Are Solitude rings of a band clutching their nascent ideas too tightly, forcing the ideas together rather than evaluating whether each still has a place. Fortunately, many of the ideas are quite good, and Inner Cabala clearly have an ear for melody and the ability to write engaging, interesting prog—the album is enjoyable enough, even if its best moments are hamstrung by a lack of organization, too many lesser passages, and ineffective vocals. The foundation of a strong album is here, and Inner Cabala appear capable of delivering something that holds its own among their more mature progressive metal peers. So, please, kill those darlings next time and you might be left with something special.
Recommended tracks: Feathers, Hollow, Mediocrity Divides II
You may also like: Kingcrow, Rendezvous Point, Hippotraktor
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Independent
Inner Cabala is:
– Pim Limburg (vocals)
– Alexandru Daniel Taun (guitars)
– Razvan “Sid” Poinaru (bass)
– Carlo Belloni (drums)
– Alessandro Zanchetta (guitars)
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