IRA (studio album) by Iosonouncane

From Mercury 06/28/2021 02:49

(Mesmerizing and gloomy post industrial album that takes you on a fascinating and eerie and beautifully winding stroll through a somewhat dreamy/nightmarish sound world.)

It is kind of hard to artfully describe this album. I’m general terms it a MASSIVE, 109 minute, Indy trails dark wave record with heaps and heaps of beautiful and stirring melodies and a gloomy, thick atmosphere.

While this album does tend to meander a bit and, did I mention, it’s long, for some reason I never find it hard to complete a full listen. The way the tracks are sequenced and the way most of these brooding electronic tracks morph and twist sometimes sharply and suddenly and sometimes slowly, it holds my attention. It’s a strangely transfixing, dark, swirling, beautiful album.

The vocals are all over the place. Mercurial shifts from saddened singing to off-putting angular chanting to other more to ally atmospheric vocals are common throughout the album and sometimes within one multi-phased track. And, although, I can’t understand the words being expressed as I don’t speak the language, I somehow feel swept up in the implied meanings and emotions of the words.

Overall, this is one of my favorite discoveries of the year. I wasn’t familiar with the artist and didn’t know what to expect when I pushed play. I saw the cover, the bleak and foreboding image, and I felt drawn to whatever lay inside. The music matches the eerie, mysterious art. Just an intense, excellently engaging, winding, mesmerizing, gorgeously dark post-industrial album.

From ExTeaSea 05/22/2021 00:48

Listening to this on YouTube isn't doing this justice. Definitely need to listen to this without ads to get the full effect. Plus it's really long so I need to plan a time to fully appreciate it because what I've heard so far is pretty epic. Highly recommend for anyone who loves dark atmospheric music.