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Irkalla is the debut album by Candian Black/Death Metal act Erimha. Irkalla is a concept album based on Sumerian mythology and features nine tracks, one of which is an intro.
Musically the music blends between the more atmospheric sounds of black metal to the more brutal sounds of death metal, but not to the point that Erima could be considered as a blackened death metal act, more of a hybrid of the two. The band quickly shows themselves to not be just interested in full out brutality though, as there are some very interesting melodic ideas going on in the music, which often really make the atmosphere of the black metal influences really great, and they also use some acoustics to great effect. Alissa White-Gluz of The Agonist also crops up in third track The Legend Of Ereshkigal to provide some guest clean vocals.
Erimha also quickly prove that they can provide the sort of metal extremity to keep the most hardcore death and black metal fans happy with an absolutely fierce delivery of their songs, and also show that while they aren’t going to why away from the melodic stuff, they’re aiming to please the more extreme crowd. The production on the album is also pretty good, resulting in a nice polished sound that suits these guys well, and showcases their skill as musicians, and it’s always nice to hear black metal influenced bands not dishing up such raw sounds that things get lost (probably the death metal influence at work here), and this also allows the listener to hear that there’s a lot of interesting ideas going on here, some of which add an unexpected feel to the album that hints at a possible but unexplored progressive or even avant-garde direction that Irkalla could have been taken in.
My only real complaint about Irkalla is that there are some hints at a more symphonic influenced sound, but this element of the band’s music doesn’t sound always as if it sits right in the mix to me. It seems pushed to the back a little and maybe that’s what the band was going for, but personally I’d have liked to have heard this symphonic influence brought to the foreground a bit more, because mixed with all the other influences that the band does well, it could have potentially made Erimha’s sound ever more epic then it could is. Even so, Irkalla really is a very strong release. The growls of vocalist Gore drift between being rooted in black and death metal and there are even some surprise clean vocals later in the album and the instrumentation is kept fresh and interesting throughout, making Irkalla very far from a generic listening experience. Personally I think that there is room for improvement in Erimha’s sound, but this is a very strong debut effort where none of the tracks can be considered bad and I highly recommend checking them out at your first opportunity.
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven)