When many bands break through to mass audiences and suddenly everyone knows who they are, there seems to be some common paths they go on to tread. Bringing on recognised figures within the industry to make this album feel bigger or branch into new musical styles and influences. It’s a reaction to the pressure. Is the next album going to be as good? Everyone loved the last one. Igorrr are unique. To speak of Igorrr’s sound is one thing but to hear it is another. Their Savage Sinusoid took what felt like a background of experiments and comfortable exploring and gave it form. Igorrr was on the map. Savage Sinusoid was powerful in its versatility. This actually felt like a natural progression from their earlier albums Hallelujah and Nostril. Igorrr felt like unashamed experimentation at its best. Baroque music, Trip Hop and Breakcore, Black/Death/Prog Metal all form as their many influences, and it, somehow, can all be heard. It created a hugely unpredictable tone to the music. Never quite sure what each song was going to do but always Igorrr. Spirituality and Distortion is a follow up to this ground work. It could not be anything but Igorrr. They had a wild mentality and made erratic changes, which caused earlier songs to sound so chaotic. Despite expanding into new areas of music, refining their sound with better equipment and playing with new ideas, Spirituality and Distortion, feels more consistent. A strange thing but this is actually a critical point. The mad fun isn’t as mad. We still have songs such as ‘Very Noise’, ‘Camel Dancefloor’, ‘Musette Maximum’, ‘Paranoid Bulldozer Italiano’ and ‘Kung-Fu Chevre’ that feel like wildly unexpected deviations; parts of this madness does not shine through from time to time. But if we take the second single, ‘Parpaing’, perhaps a perfect example of the album as a whole. Whilst the first single ‘Very Noise’ is astonishingly powerful in it’s insanity, giving us exactly what we want from Igorrr, ‘Parpaing’ feels like a well produced Metal song. Only towards the end does it start to play with this and Igorrr starts to shine through a bit more. It also is an example of the band including more Metal names in the music – as George Fisher provides vocals. From time to time there are moments of more world music which gives the album a bit more of an epic feel. Most of all, however, the album trades most of the insanity for stronger influences of Baroque music. ‘Nervous Waltz’, ‘Barocco Satani’ and ‘Hollow Tree’ are examples of this shift. It marks a musical accomplishment and a refinement of influences. By no means is Spirituality and Distortion bad, nor is it a far-cry from Igorrr. It is a solid piece of musical writing, a powerful album by one of the most unique bands you could hear. It shouts out that Igorrr could never be uninteresting if they tried – I could comfortably recommend almost all of the tracks. Many bands can not boast an album that offers almost all tracks as memorable and Igorrr seem to be able to do this without lifting a finger. It has only lost some of the insane edge that they exploded on to the scene to begin with. Score: 9/10 Facebook: /IgorrrBarrroque/ Twitter: @IgorrrBarrroque Bandcamp: /igorrr.bandcamp.com/ Instagram: /Igorrr_Music
Soundcloud: /Igorrr