INBORN SUFFERING is a French Melodic Doom Metal band formed in 2002 when Thomas Rugolino and Emmanuel Ribeiro got in contact with Stephane Peudupin. They have a single demo and two studio albums. The debut "Wordless Hope" was released in 2006 and after 6 years they released their 2^nd, and new album, "Regression To Nothingness".

The album's title attracted me very much at the first. Regression is a defensive psycho mechanism people use when their current life's state is not going well wishing to overcome stress and distress while living a painful life with plenty of suffering. Indeed the rate of stress and suffering is consanguineous and some people have more misery and some less. Therefore they use regression to follow their past where they lived a content life by traveling (in their mind) and make a kind of fantasy through dreaming. Nothingness is a concept of nihilism and absurdness and in terms of philosophic / social point of views it's a negative perception but in regression, as I mentioned above, people rather regress to their positive memories where they were happy. In the bottom line, after abusing your mind, this album's title has a really nice and complicated paradox that is so attractive and compelling.

This release might look short at the first but there are really magical lengthy tracks, which are in mainly in the vein of how melodic Doom Metal tracks are. For INBORN SUFFERING fans six years is a long time of waiting, but it was worth it and this new album will serve as strong and satisfying for them. Throughout the album the vocalist uses three vocal patterns; one is a thick doomy high end raspy tone, one that is commonly shared in extreme Doom Metal, along with the second pattern of the lower deathly growl. Also there is the third pattern of the clean vocals, more of the narrative type than singing. These narrations usually accompany heavy rhythm and various of keyboard action. For those who always focus on lyrics as the most important part of music (like myself) this is a more of a laidback experience with headbanging poetry. The convergence of the gloomy music and lyricism is so deep to extent that you might feel wholesome vacuum and empty worlds, the worlds within your mind and soul I mean, always searching for something to fill them up.

The bass work is not too tight and creative, but it vaccinate an absolute surge power to the guitars within the rhythms, while also not letting you, the listener, just go. As you may know France has really powerful underground extreme Metal associations, but INBORN SUFFERING is more of a melodic Doom Metal band with a dedicated keyboard player, therefore the rhythms are more soothing and faster than classical Doom Metal, you can feel this in "Born Guilty". Personally I liked "Apotheosis" mostly because it is different than other songs. It starts with a really nice and inspiring bass rhythm. The keyboard solos and rhythms in the mid-way are also very beautiful. It is actually the longest track of "Regression To Nothingness", 13:15 minutes.

"Regression To Nothingness" is an excellent example of melodic Doom Metal and can be compared with giant albums of the genre. It has lots of majors and experts attention on it and it totally feels magical and interesting, forcing your mind to a deep inner search.