In The Time Of Giants - Inheritance (2022)

Do giants experience time slower than humans, since they're bigger? I'd have never thought to think of that question if it wasn't for Benn Jordan's recent video about that subject (well, with animals, not giants, since, you know, giants don't exist) but after seeing that video, I couldn't help but think of it. Nothing to do with this album, but...

BANDCAMP

01. Crawk
02. Apatelepathy
03. Isosceles
04. Mr. Freeze
05. Inheritance
06. Rend
07. Somber
08. Dibbins
09. Slow Parable
10. Return
11. Spacewind
12. Reach For The Heavens
13. Digitalism
14. Wicked Game (Chris Isaak cover)

With a name like "In The Time of Giants", an artist could make two kinds of music and it wouldn't feel like a misnomer: epic doom metal or emo pop punk/metalcore. This is neither, but it is pretty epic and it does have some emo vibes pop up from time to time, and it has a lot of catchy and sparkly-sounding stuff, so... actually, somehow this feels like exactly the kind of music that you'd expect In The Time Of Giants to sound like.

This is a very solid album, in that it's consistent but has enough variation to keep it fresh and engaging. This stuff is dripping with nostalgia for bands that dominated MTV; I could easily visualise most of the songs on this album having music videos shot at parking lots with burning bins/cars/band members, dirty public toilets and other locations like that (although the fact that most songs are instrumental lessens the intensity of that visualisation).

The absolute standout track to me is Rend with its groovy heavy riffage and burning intensity, while Dibbins is a song that more or less cycles through every vibe present on this album.

The vocals make me think of a greasy alcoholic with messy hair and a scrawny goatee sitting on a porch in an off-white tank top with questionable stains who's seen it all, having flashbacks to whatever horrors he has witnessed. You might think that sounds like an insult, but I don't mean it like that; if anything, it really hammers home the feeling of this album as something reminiscent of harder times of the past. On the other hand, the electronic elements give it a modern touch, a hint of a future where we live in a technological utopia; it can't be a dystopia with all the hopeful melodies that permeate the album, can it? They do get melancholic, too, though...

Personally, I feel like a lot of the instrumental songs would be better and more memorable with vocals, because they tend to sound like they'd have space for vocals and to my ears that leaves them sounding somewhat incomplete. However, this is of course entirely subjective, and I'll admit I'm heavily biased in favour of music that has vocals, with only rare exceptions.

I'd say this album encapsulates a feeling of a late night where you're not sure what the future holds, feeling conflicted over fears and hopes. That vibe is wrapped up with the last song, a cover of a song I'd forgotten exists and never knew who it was originally by. This rendition of it, at least in the context of this album, somehow sounds to me like a last plea for confirmation that the future will be a utopia and not a cyberpunk dystopia.

Enjoyability: 7/10
Relistenability: 7/10
Memorability: 6/10
Coherence: 8/10
Flow: 9/10
Originality: 6/10
Epicness: 8/10
Nutshell: If prog metal/rock would be your favourite thing if only it didn't have so much proggery, this will be your favourite album.