Erimha

Yesterday’s installment in our week-long attempt to catch up on album reviews by being atypically brief was a blast of bleak brutality from Contaigeon. Today, we’re swinging the pendulum back over to the more melodic end of the metal spectrum with an unsigned band from Montreal called Erimha, whose music we heard after getting a MySpace friend request from them.

Every band has to start someplace, but some bands (few of them) start fast. With their debut album, Irkalla, Erimha bolts from the starting blocks like they’ve been shot from a gun. Irkalla is an epic blend of melodic black-death metal — dramatic, haunting, memorable, and remarkably assured both in the songwriting and in the execution.

If references help you, the music reminded me at different times of Insomnium, Keep of Kelessin, and even Behemoth. There’s a grim grandeur to the musical style. It achieves dramatic power through its dark melodies without ever veering into cheese, and it manages to retain an icy edge despite its often panoramic sweep. I could be justly accused of excessive enthusiasm over many things, so you may have to take this with a grain of salt, but I’m completely taken over by this music. (more after the jump . . .)

The instrumental playing on the album is first-rate, and the sharp, clear production is plainly what the music demands. Alix (on lead guitar) and Kthien (on rhythm guitar) are more than capable at what they’re doing, achieving a variety of tones, rhythms, and organic solos that fuel the emotional core of the music. (And either someone is adding some subtle keyboards to achieve that epic sound — though no one is credited with keyboards — or those dudes are doing it through guitar effects.)

Lykan (on bass) and Ksaos (on drums) are a match for the guitars in what they contribute. They sound like seasoned pros. The drums are particularly prominent and sharp in the mix, and deservedly so; Ksaos’ sharp, controlled, varied playing contributes greatly to the music’s riveting power.

But despite the impressive instrumental performance, I’ve got to make special mention of Gore‘s vocals, because I’ve rarely heard someone successfully achieve so much variety in an album of extreme metal. His vocals span the range from icy whispers to acidic shrieking to mid-ranged howls to the deepest of hair-raising gutturals — and on the album’s last two tracks (“Travelling Through Irkala” and “Horizon Demise”), he even breaks unexpectedly into clean song (though I didn’t think the clean vocals were as strong as the rest of Gore’s performance).

Those last two tracks aren’t the only songs that blend bestial vocalization with clean song. Alissa White-Gluz, the vocalist from Montreal’s The Agonist, contributes her soprano vocal skills to “The Legend of Erishkigal”, and it’s an interesting combination.

The music sounds like it’s telling a story, and the story appears to be based on Sumerian/Babylonian legends — Irkalla being the hell-like underworld ruled by the goddess Erishkigal, who unleashes vengeance upon men through a merciless army of warrior elite — the Erimha.

- Islander - www.nocleansinging.com

Today I’d like to talk to you about a new group called Erimha and their début album, Irkalla. Were I a music professor or a dry connoisseur, I might tell you Erimha hails from the Montreal area and their album is inspired by Sumerian folklore. Their music is forged from powerful and ancient myth and it speaks of the struggle to forge the basis of civilization in a harsh world. But I am not a professor and you are certainly not my students. We are adventurers, fellow explorers on a sound safari and I hope you will join me on this trek into the depths of Irkalla.

Erimha first treats us to a brief intro, a suspenseful, building number. It’s the musical equivalent to being stalked, the “ba-dum” of this album’s Jaws. In short order the band stops teasing us and throws us into The Sign of Chaos, their first song. If the intro is being stalked then Chaos is the pounce. It jumps on us, its sound direct & lively. The vocals are a mixture of growls and roars and the music is upbeat.

Continuing to hit us hard, Irkalla’s next number is Legend of Ereshkigal. This piece comes in fast and furious and gets the blood pumping. There’s a great contrast here where the vocalists sound as if they’re having a three-way battle with the melody, occasionally backing off and letting the music solo before diving in again and tearing up the track. We jump from there straight into Kingdom of Grief and I think this is my favourite track on the CD. It comes in rough and ready, but soon eases off a bit. The music in Kingdom is almost playful, fun even. Here we experience a light background sound while the vocals come at us hard. The mixture is a great contrast and we encounter this sort of balance again in later songs as the band combines moments intensity with an comparatively gentle sound.

More after the jump:




The album next presents us with Dark Reflections and, as the name implies, it takes us down a darker path. The sound is deep and the music has a good flow to it. There’s a certain lyrical rhythm to this song which brings to mind poetry being recited in Hell. Another song that lives up to its name is Slumbering Conviction. This track takes things down a notch, lets us relax a bit before we’re shaken into full alertness by Spiritual Rebirth. Rebirth starts out nice and slow before erupting with intense, pulsing energy. Then it backs off a little, lets us catch our breath before hitting us with another wave of energy. This sort of ebb and flow is consistent on Irkalla, and especially noticeable in this piece. We’re also treated to some beautiful guitar work here that captures the spiritual aspect of Rebirth.

Next up on the track list is Travelling Through Irkalla and this is runner up for my favourite song on the album. The rhythm here is fantastic, there’s a natural flow to the sound, a smooth rising and falling that makes you want to pump your fist in the air while drowning in the smooth lyrics.

The album finishes off with a tune called Horizon Demise. It’s a fitting finale, the music more restrained, slowing us down. Where the intro built us up and got us ready, Demise is the perfect good-bye.

When we consider Erimha is a young band and this is their first CD, I think they’ve done really well. They understand their strengths and are wise enough not to over-use those aspects of their talent. They feed us something good, let us enjoy it and then move on to something else. There’s a great balance in this album, and more variety than I would have expected from a new group. Erimha understands the concept of giving us what we want and leaving us wanting more. Irkalla is a strong début and I recommend checking it out.

Let me hear you!

Surdus

- Surdus - welovemetal.com

_Irkalla_ is good. Pretty great, actually. It blasts. It haunts. It croons. It breaks faces. _Irkalla_ makes me want to shake my rump and bang my head and raise whole crates of invisible frostbitten Quebecois oranges. It makes me want to wear corpse paint to work on a daily basis. Erimha strike a triumphant three-way balance, drawing almost equally from death metal aggression, black metal bleakitude, and gothic rock -- the latter of which injects a little of the oft-neglected human touch into _Irkalla_'s terrific firestorm. In fact, this particular combo of qualities, along with some of the raw-throat barking (one of several vocal styles on offer), aligns Erimha closely with Mediterranean brethren Rotting Christ. And like Rotting Christ, Erimha also turn to historical mythologies for inspiration; of course, being Canadian, they can't own the Babylonian thing quite so completely. Listen to _Irkalla_, though, and you might be fooled.
Maybe album intro tracks have become quaint and obvious, but Erimha use theirs spectacularly to build curiosity and ratchet expectations -- I could listen to that Neurosis-style homage to drum circles far longer than the brief minute it lasts. From there, it's all thundering beats, gorgeous leads, and vicious denunciations of humanity's self-induced doom, everything gleaming with a clarity that would make prog fans weep. You already know what to expect once the album gets going, and herein lies the only complaint with _Irkalla_. Its tight adherence to sounds by other artists in other locales positions Erimha firmly within the jostling pack of very solid bands. The band relies so much on familiar musical and emotional territory that the moments of restrained sorrow in "The Sign of Chaos" and "The Legend of Ereshkigal" are tough to distinguish even after repeated spins. These songs could only spring from smart songwriters and competent players, but there is little on _Irkalla_ to propel Erimha ahead of its peers.

Still, the recording quality is devastating, the melodies are engaging and confident, and the vocals are consistently harsh and convincing. The vocal variety on display is impressive, ranging from black screech to death roar to menacing whisper-growl; there are even brief forays into clean singing in "Traveling Through Irkalla" that recall The End's _Elementary_, as well as full female vocals that hint at the melodrama of Evanescence. These moments are fleeting and unrepeated, however, and those two bands are hardly touchstones for the majority of Erimha's gothic black/death behemoth. For ears seeking predictable levels of destruction, _Irkalla_ is a very satisfying listen.

- Chronicles of chaos - CoC