Irdorath
Dekonstrukteur Des Fleisches

This band has gotten their name from an island with an undead dragon in a computer game, that is not really awfully cool for an extreme metal band, is it? Austrian extreme metal band Irdorath have recently released their second album, a band that sing in German which is a bit different I would say. Their cover artwork isn’t the most impressive either with some skulls on some poles, not really a cover art you look at and think “I want that album” not even by a long shot. I have not idea about the computer game fact, it was something that came up while searching the net for facts, I have no real understanding of computer games as I never play them, anyway I do know that they are labeled as a band singing in german with crushing guitar hooks. Sounds brilliant, doesn’t it? Or like a sales pitch if you ask me.

Musically it is extreme metal with some guitar hooks and some clever catchy bits to spice it all up, it is modern extreme metal with a style and sound that is not that different from the mainstream of that particular genre. The only thing that sets this band apart from the rest of the genre is the singing in german, a bit simplified of course but that is about how it is. Fast, hard, heavy, slightly groovy with growling vocals sung in german. To say that it is genre typical and stylistically typical is not much of an exaggeration, the album is even ten tracks and 45 minutes long which means that I have played it for around 535 minutes by now, even slightly more added the 38 seconds that the album plays past the 45 minute mark. But honestly even a bony dragon can deduce that this album is much of a typical extreme metal album with the only feature differentiating them from the rest is the german language.

I am not overly impressed by this album I have to admit, something that I suppose you could already deduce from the paragraph above that I thought that. Thing is that they offer nothing new, they do not do what they do poorly but they do not offer anything that I haven’t heard before and that from a genre that I generally do not really care much for so maybe I am not the right man to claim things about such bands but I do enjoy lots of such music. I am not saying that you have to reinvent the wheel every time you make music but it really helps not sounding like a flattened version of a genre which is more or less what these guys do, the only thing even resembling something unique is the vocals that are sung in german, but to be honest that is not really that much to show for, is it?

All is not dreary and drab, the sixth track about some Antigott is actually rather good and is a bright light in an otherwise quite grey album. The thing is though that despite a decent track and a decent execution it is a forgetful album, it has some parts that are good although most of it is uneventful and leaves no lasting impression of any kind.

I am not looking to be mean or diss this band in any sense of the way but there is a lot of bands like this around already and this one doesn’t really offer anything that we haven’t already heard. Maybe it is something for the fans of this genre to look at but for those more loosely interested in this kind of music it is not really recommended. An album where lands of the undead dragons ends up being the norm and completely indifferent.