IRDORATH – “DEKONSTRUKTEUR DES FLEISCHES”
MASSACRE (2012)

Metal Church - The Present Wasteland

The advent of the Internet has been as much a blessing as it has been a curse for both bands and record labels alike as the general consensus is that it has solved as many problems as it has created.

Even though the number of bands that choose the path of self-promotion through various social media is steadily increasing there are still quite a few who find the financial support of a recognised label as necessary step towards commercial success. One such band is the Austrian Thrash/Black quartet Irdorath – a band which managed to win for itself a contract with Massacre Records on the strength of their second studio album “Dekonstrukteur Des Fleisces” and which has now received world-wide distribution from the German label.

These noisy Austrians are quite accurately promoted as a Thrash/Black outfit and even though the influences of those two genres are clearly audible in these ten compositions, Thrash is definitely more dominant.

There are both positives and negatives about the album, so…to start with the former: the duet Markus Leiner/Manuel Eschenauer has done a fairly decent job composing the riffs and melodies that are the backbone of these simply-crafted compositions.

Even though most of them are clearly influenced by some of the most classic bands of both genres, such as Bathory and Kreator, there are a few occasions when you can really enjoy the mid-tempo head banging tunes that are on offer here.

On a more negative note, there are also quite a few moments throughout this album when I felt that the structure and coherence of certain songs were undermined by strange or even unnecessary combinations of multiple different ideas. On top of that, I found Stefan Traunmullers’ production to be fairly poor, especially with regards Thomas Leitner’s drum sound which resembles that of cooking pots being bashed around, stealing away both power and energy from many songs that could otherwise make a decent impact.

The opening track of the album is the same-titled “Dekonstrukteur Des Fleisches” which features a five minute head banging Thrash riff and which is supported by harsh vocals of Black Metal quality. “Freitodzwang” is an enjoyable track but certainly lacks originality as it serves all the clichés made popular by Burzum twenty odd years ago.

Both “Blindheit” and “Unter Flammenden Laternen” are filled with fine individual riffs and melodies which somehow fail to create a strong musical proposition when combined. Contrary to them, “Stummheit” is a solid piece of work featuring Epic guitar harmonies and massive pompous riffs of immense quality and is followed by the equally well-structured and musically coherent “Fleischgewordner Antigott”.

In “Bald Ersauft Die Menschenbrut” we have another example of badly-combined good quality riffs, something that cannot be said for “Das Stolze Tier” and “Spiegelscherben” which display some really meaty Thrash riffs. Finally, in the five minute “Taubheit” we find the quartet looking towards classic Metal for inspiration, a pretty successful exercise that needs to be repeated in future releases.

As I mentioned earlier in my review, there is both positive and negative in the ten compositions of “Dekonstrukteur Des Fleisches”. There is a certain level of maturity that I feel that the band still needs to reach before they are capable of delivering a high quality album and, most importantly, better decisions need to be made in future releases with regards their sound and the quality of the production.

There is indeed a lot of potential in these guys, otherwise Massacre would not have offered them a contract and, since their next album is not too far from completion, we will soon know if they have managed to learn from past mistakes and take the next step towards a career in the music business.

John Stefanis

Rating: ***1/2 (3.5/5.0)

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