Deploying Eerie Intro No 43 – one of the ones with droning bass notes and haunting choirs – is as good a way to open an album today as it was 20 years ago, and Indesinence are evidently keen students of history.
The London crew take their cue from the formative days of Northern doom – 1990-93, give or take – and the so-called Unholy Trinity of Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema, the scene that never was. Without actually sounding exactly like any of the three, Indesinence’s long-awaited second album conjures oppressive yet atmospheric scenes with broad, black strokes.
The one thing that unites all these bands – aside from being English and therefore clinically fed up – is a deep-seated love of Celtic Frost. Indesinence’s forebears transmuted this admiration into greatness of their own, and it’s clear that Vessels… aspires to do the same. To an extent, it succeeds, but does so only by going to lengths – sometimes literally – which will either elevate your consciousness or grind your mind into dust.
