Back in 2018 Rich caught Igorrr at Metal Days and described them as “a massive head fuck of a band”. I probably couldn’t have described it much better myself. This album defies pigeon holing, crossing multiple genres and styles to the point where only the insane have any idea of what is about to happen next. The band’s last album was 2017's Savage Sinusoid, one that I’m not familiar with but which by all accounts was a truly unique musical force. Spirituality And Distortion certainly cements that reputation. The flamenco guitar work on the opening track Downgrade Desert segues into a crunching industrial section before the emotional soaring vocals of longtime collaborator Laure Le Prunenec join the fray. Thick riffing, screaming vocals, blast beats all combine. The immediate change of style to French Baroque on Nervous Waltz is as stunning as it is surprising. More operatic vocals, all interspersed with harsh guitar riffs and explosive death metal elements that slam against strings and random pieces of electronica in a swirling maelstrom. Very Noise is next, as different and unique as every other track, a duel of high-strung bass, electronic synths and staccato drumming all in your face for a mere 1:47. By now I’ve released that reviewing this is basically a track by track exercise. There is no pattern to follow.
The disparate musical styles here range from death and black metal to breakcore, Balkan, baroque and classical music, the delivery as unconventional and unpredictable as it is thrilling. The mind fuck is happening. Igorrr are unlike any other act I’ve listened to. The emotions are as wide as the sounds on this album, something that band architect Gautier Serre has noted. "Getting stuck in only one emotion is very boring to me; life is a wide range of emotions - sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad, angry, pissed off, nostalgic or blown away. Life is not only one color. These 14 tracks are a journey through different states of mind I've been through." Traditional eastern flavours saturate and elements balance with unusual and highly rhythmic contours on Camel Dancefloor, a song that builds into a manic frenzy. Parpaing changes pace and style completely, a crushing, grinding death metal slab which is as explosive a track as there is here, interlaced with random blasts of cheap 8bit music, surfacing through the ranging blast beats and growling roars thanks to the guest vocals of one George ‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher from Cannibal Corpse. It’s totally eccentric and even after six songs, I’m completely bemused. This is either genius or the work of a madman. Musette Maximum features assault level drumming with an accordion, and this is just bonkers stuff. I am however, starting to embrace the styles, the anticipation of what comes next like a musical selection box.
Serre enlisted a small army of specialist musicians to help him attain his vision with all the acoustic instruments recorded traditionally. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s centerpiece, Himalaya Massive Ritual, by far the longest track on the album and one that contains contributions from many of the assembled artists. Spirituality And Distortion includes violinist Timba Harris, bassist Mike Leon, pianist Matt Lebofsky, Oud player Mehdi Haddab, accordion player Pierre Mussi, Kanoun player Fotini Kokkala and harpsichordist Benjamin Bardiaux, among others. As well as Le Prunenec, regular collaborator Laurent Lunoir also appears on a few tracks. Spirituality And Distortion is very much and album focused on sound, with Serre admitting "As with the previous albums, I'm entirely focused on the sound itself and how the sonorities of the voice speaks to the heart, not the intellectual meaning of the words." Indeed, much of the focus appears to be on contrasting elements, a grinding juxtaposition which provokes the listener to challenge the senses and broaden the listening capacity. The album’s concluding pieces continue to vary greatly in both substance and texture, and there is a real challenge when moving to provide a rating for what is probably the most unusual album you’ll hear all year. 8/10
Thanatos: Violent Death Rituals (Listenable Records) [Paul Hutchings]
Thanatos formed in 1984 and claim to be the oldest Dutch death metal band. Having split in 1992, founder member Stephan Gebédi (vocals and guitar) reformed the band and recruited guitarist Paul Baayans who remains with the band today. This album, their seventh full length, is the first to feature drummer Martin Ooms and bassist Mous Mirer and is the follow up to 2014’s Global Purification (a title more apt to the current climate!). Violent Death Rituals is a solid album. The playing is tight, the blend of death and thrash metal make it easy to listen to, and all the component parts are in place. Heavy, savage riffing, pounding drumming and thumping bass lines, all lined up to support the snarling, gravel throated roar of Gebédi whose voice appears to be as effective in 2020 as it was in 1984.
The album varies in style, with ventures towards black metal (The Outer Darkness) alongside the more punishing intense title track, The Silent War and the bruising As The Cannons Fade which epically closes the album. There is more than a hint of Slayer on the final track as well as in other parts of the album, and I’m good with that. Plenty then to get your teeth into, such as the brutal Burn The Books Of Hate which is a killer track hidden away in the middle of the album. Powerful messages, aggressive and intense, this is an album that is well worth spending an hour of your life with. 8/10
Witchfinder: Hazy Rites (Mrs Red Sound) [Matt Bladen]
Hazy Rites is the latest release on Mrs Red Sound records, the record label created by Mars Red Sound. It's a place for stoner/doom/sludge and psych so the perfect place for Clermont Ferrand based fuzz merchants Witchfinder. This trio play the kind of doom you'd expect from Electric Wizard, Dopethrone and Monolord, slow grinding distorted riffs and heavily treated vocals are the key ingredients to songs such as Satan's Haze which bring together this band's two major driving forces Satan and Weed. Hazy Rites is an album that probably requires you to draw a pentagram on your floor and grab your largest bong as you let the monumental riffs of songs like Sexual Intercourse on which gets quite primal as Wild Trippin gives you more stoner metal grooves. Doom/stoner metal from France that will take you to a higher plain of consciousness. 7/10
Ferocity: The Hegemon (Immigrant Species Records) [Matt Bladen]
Ferocity's new album The Hegemon is nine tracks of brutal Danish death metal. Reminiscence Of A Tyrant kicks the album off with 3 minutes and 55 seconds of vile extremity driven by explosive blast beating and some guttural vocals. Apparently this album has been in development since 2012 and the lyrical content is "centered on a dystopian and war-torn parallel reality in a nearby future where human and political ignorance will be the likely causes of the inevitable human demise" (sound familiar?), they've certainly used the time it;s taken to write, to try and make it the most brutal gut punching death metal album they could, there are melodic guitars at times but mostly the album is one that makes your neck hurt due to it's sheer...well Ferocity. Never has a name of a band been more on the money, The Hegemon is distilled fury, nine tracks, no let up, can get a bit tiring after a bit. 6/10
Witchfinder: Hazy Rites (Mrs Red Sound) [Matt Bladen]
Hazy Rites is the latest release on Mrs Red Sound records, the record label created by Mars Red Sound. It's a place for stoner/doom/sludge and psych so the perfect place for Clermont Ferrand based fuzz merchants Witchfinder. This trio play the kind of doom you'd expect from Electric Wizard, Dopethrone and Monolord, slow grinding distorted riffs and heavily treated vocals are the key ingredients to songs such as Satan's Haze which bring together this band's two major driving forces Satan and Weed. Hazy Rites is an album that probably requires you to draw a pentagram on your floor and grab your largest bong as you let the monumental riffs of songs like Sexual Intercourse on which gets quite primal as Wild Trippin gives you more stoner metal grooves. Doom/stoner metal from France that will take you to a higher plain of consciousness. 7/10
Ferocity: The Hegemon (Immigrant Species Records) [Matt Bladen]
Ferocity's new album The Hegemon is nine tracks of brutal Danish death metal. Reminiscence Of A Tyrant kicks the album off with 3 minutes and 55 seconds of vile extremity driven by explosive blast beating and some guttural vocals. Apparently this album has been in development since 2012 and the lyrical content is "centered on a dystopian and war-torn parallel reality in a nearby future where human and political ignorance will be the likely causes of the inevitable human demise" (sound familiar?), they've certainly used the time it;s taken to write, to try and make it the most brutal gut punching death metal album they could, there are melodic guitars at times but mostly the album is one that makes your neck hurt due to it's sheer...well Ferocity. Never has a name of a band been more on the money, The Hegemon is distilled fury, nine tracks, no let up, can get a bit tiring after a bit. 6/10
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