• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

How's that for a (mini-)album title? ;) Portugal's Irae play a raw form of black metal very reminiscent of the mid-90s or so, think (loosely) of Darkthrone and the likes who were doing it raw but within reason, so this is definitely not for fans of polished symphonic black metal as some of the sounds coming out of this could get the neighbours to call the cops. Where Irae step out of the norm is in the extensive use of melody, which often pops out of nowhere after a good serving a good ol' raw and basic black metal. Keyboards are used, mostly sparingly, and oddly fit relatively well. The vocals are screeches that are quite fitting for the raw music, but they also use some clean vocals here and there, even including some spoken passages in French, which I found a little weird. You've heard most of this before, but Irae have put a couple of variations on the black metal theme together rather successfully, making this a pretty decent cool overall.