Review by Saxy S for Irreversible - Irreversible (2015)

I have been remarkably lucky when it comes to discovering post-metal. Whether it be through my regular progressive metal spheres or right here at Metal Academy, the cream of the crop always manages to find its way to the top, while a lot more of the simplistic, textured post-metal gets relegated to the purgatory regions of the subgenre. Now without everyone shouting their answers at the same time, can anyone guess where the Georgia based post-metal band, Irreversible, fall in this discussion?

Listen, it's hard to get excited for a new post-metal band like this when I already know what to expect before I even hit play on the first track. But Irreversible aren't even a new band! This self-titled record is actually the bands fifth studio album, which makes this sinking feeling of predictability run even worse through my veins! And while this self-titled record is certainly pleasant sounding, it does not do nearly enough of its own soul searching to make it anything more than a proverbial blip on the radar.

The album starts and I've already heard "Undertow" from bands like Solstafir before. I dig the unconventional rhythm structure that is presented as the intro, but when the vocals enter, the band has returned back to a pretty common time groove. The production is quite solid and textures are very warm with very little in the way of harsh vocals.

That changes quickly when "Absent Help" replaces the warm textures with much heavier and colder tones, while the harsher vocals create a more concaving environment to the listener than previously established. I must admit, I was originally on board with this bait-and-switch from Irreversible and thought it showed a different side of the band, only to be reminded that this album was released ten years after Rosetta's The Galilean Satellites. Sure, the textures are nice and pretty (or as pretty as it can be), but when you're presenting a style of post-metal that is practically unchanged from ten years ago, we have a problem.

And unfortunately, this carries on throughout the remaining tracks. The only one that stands out to my ears was "Mandatory Death" with its odd timbre snare drum that sounds like it's being doubled by an electronic one. This is while the instrumental is playing a very repetitive, almost hypnotic ostinato that gives off the impression of something closer to stoner metal. Unfortunately, the last song "Fade" does nothing to continue in this trend and simply returns back to paint-by-numbers, formulaic post-metal by way of Rosetta/The Ocean.

Attentive minds might be wondering why I skipped over nearly half of the albums tracks in my review up to this point. And the answer for that is because most of them are just extended interludes of electronic warble's to get the listener from one post-metal track to the next. Now, I've never been opposed to interludes like this before, but you cannot expect your interludes to have the same level of emotional weight as the "songs". Tracks like "Language of Paralysis" and "Armistice" are way too long to be interludes, but not long enough to be songs. So they just sort of fill up space and occupy an empty void in a record that is already pretty lacking in character.

I know I'm being overly critical of this album, but it really is not all that bad. If you like post-metal, or you just really like The Galilean Satellites and you want to hear more of that for some reason, then who knows, maybe you'll find a lot more to enjoy out of Irreversible than me. But I crave for artists to be more personable with their records; a clear a distinct message that is all your own and not simply copied from another source, even if that source is considered canon. Irreversible have none of that personable touch here and I would much rather just listen to The Galilean Satellites again.

Best Songs: Undertow, Mandatory Death