Because I had done the bare minimum of reconnaissance, I was only vaguely aware of what awaited me when I first sat down to listen to Reaper’s debut, Viridian Inferno. That the Australian band plays an appropriately primitive form of blackened speed/heavy metal, owing as much to punk as to metal, did not surprise me. The “reaper” and “inferno” in Reaper’s Viridian Inferno suggests as much, though I could not have told you at the time what “viridian” (a blueish green color) means. And the glaive-equipped, fashionably sinewy centaur on the cover art doesn’t exactly scream prog or post-metal. What did surprise me, however, was the diversity in sound Reaper was able to accomplish within a relatively short running time of about thirty minutes.
No doubt, Reaper gives off serious “this band would rip live” vibes. The frenetic “Taste the Blood,” “Decay,” and “Nothing Left to Waste” reinforce that. Yet the vigor of Viridian Inferno lives in the transitory build of some of the album’s calmer moments, even within songs. The slower beat introducing “Nothing Left to Waste,” for example, establishes an expectation that the freneticism later plays off of to create a more dynamic (and interesting) listen. This same dynamic is also present on “Decay,” though the slower, but no less heavy passage starts about halfway into the song.
Viridian Inferno doesn’t require a dedicated listen to enjoy, and that’s at least half the fun. Maybe it’s because I’ve recently felt obligated to turn everything else off, but I found it oddly refreshing to blast “Mass Grave” and “Drop of the Blade” while sorting, cleaning, and doing other menial tasks around the house. Not every album benefits from a cult-like commitment to tuning out. Viridian Inferno features more than a few of those anti-tuning out tunes and, ultimately, I appreciated the breather.
