Review: Aronious – Irkalla

Style: Technical Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Inferi, The Artisan Era 
Review by: Andy
Country: United States–Wisconsin
Release date: 12 August, 2022

As a lad first exploring the world of metal, I did not understand how a record label influenced a band’s sound at all and hardly even noticed that half the time I could glean as much or more from a band’s label choice as their fluffed up bios. That all changed for me one uneventful day when I heard my umpteenth The Artisan Era release and pieced together that a whole label could sound like various iterations of Inferi, and for the most part, that has remained true outside of a select few (Warforged, Dessiderium, Stortregn). If you heard Aronious’ debut, then you know that they fit The Artisan Era-core description perfectly, even featuring a standout performance from a member of Inferi. The only element missing is a Malcom Pugh guest solo. 

Irkalla is some coldly calculated stuff, the uber technicality sounding robotically precise. The twisted atmospheres of labelmates Aethereus collide with the shocking speed and jagged riffs of The Deviant Process as soon as the pointless symphonic opener, “Ananaki,” ends. The rhythms are wonky, the guitars are noodly enough you could comfortably name an Italian restaurant Aronious, and the bass, courtesy of Inferi’s Andrew Kim, is chonky and brings great pleasure: all things we’ve come to expect from The Artisan Era. Performances across the board are unreasonably impressive as solos apparently spontaneously generate with computational efficiency while flurries of blast beats and sick fills permeate the overly slick, The Artisan Era-standard mix. If you like the sound of the polished modern tech scene, then you’ll have no problems with the mix; if not, you’ve been warned (but already knew exactly how it would sound by the second sentence of my review). 

The band’s debut album, Perspicacity, sprinted throughout every moment; however, its bloated, hour runtime induced extreme listening fatigue. Thankfully, Aronious trimmed Irkalla down to a slim forty minutes, and as importantly, the band slightly restrains their performances, often focussing on more hooky, groove-laden tech when they aren’t going at 0.9c. Take the track “Nincubura,” which features catchy grooves á la Gorod until suddenly whisking the listener off on insane guitar tangents like NYN does. Slowing down for more hooks doesn’t take away from the technical insanity but rather creates more memorability. After all, grooves are something more immediately catchy for mere mortal brains.

Aside from the instrumentation, the vocal performance takes some serious skill by Brandon Brown during quick shifts from throat ripping highs to deathier lows. All the while we’re treated to a Mesopotamian history lesson–assuming you can understand some pretty crazy harsh vocals–the tracks all named after various gods (and Irkalla being the ancient Mesopotamian underworld). While not quite Oliver Rae Aleron (of Archspire), Brown does a good job keeping pace with the music, which, if I didn’t mention enough already, is fast. Playing at such high speeds may seem reckless to somebody new to tech, but this album is about as safe as they come to a long time tech enjoyer. Sure, it’s impressive, but I’ve heard every ace up their sleeves dozens of times before by their labelmates. 

I’ve mentioned the computational technicality a couple times, leading us to Irkalla’s biggest problem: The band at times sounds like if you fed one of those procedurally generated music AIs a bunch of tech death. Some of the tracks on Irkalla (“Elu Ultu Irkalla,” “Negeltu”) would be what I imagine the AI would spit out as its tech death album. Irkalla isn’t a complete bust, though, and some of the tracks do sound more organically written. “Descent of Inanna” balances its technicality with interesting melodic leads without sacrificing either, and album highlight “Enkidu” creates an excellently spooky atmosphere with its lead guitar while the bass leads provide grooves aplenty to bop my head along with. 
Aronious misses an identity of their own. They have all the talent to be awesome in the tech scene, but down to the basics, every element of Irkalla sounds borrowed from another band. They lack the unique laser-like precision of Archspire, contrapuntal insanity of First Fragment, or stream of consciousness songwriting of Dessiderium. That leaves Aronious with a well-executed, but overall flat, tech album which blends in with the majority of The Artisan Era’s back catalog. If you know and love this sound, you’ll get decent mileage out of this, too. If you get that tech itch scratched only a couple times a year, this probably isn’t the album for you.

Recommended tracks: Descent of Inanna, Nincubura, Enkidu
You may also like: Aethereus, Klexos, NYN
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: The Artisan Era – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Aronious is:
– Ryan Brumlic (lead guitars, keyboards, backing vocals)
– Brandon Brown (vocals, lyrics)
– Nick Weyers (rhythm guitars)
– Kevin Paradis (drums)
– Andrew Kim (bass)