I’m going to level with everyone. I have a hell of a hard time reviewing instrumental music. I loved big instrumentals like “Call Of Ktulu”, and “Orion” by METALLICA, and it just so happens that I own every major PELICAN release. I’m also a sucker for metalgaze like NEUROSIS, ISIS and CULT OF LUNA, and I know many of their fans are into instrumental bands like PELICAN and RED SPARROWES, and I can easily see the connection.
IREPRESS certainly likes to keep things a slight bit busier, and the individual songs a slight bit shorter on “Samus Octology”. They use the shorter songs to their advantage by stringing them together into one, long cohesive album, and I love whole albums strung together almost as much as I love single song albums. When it comes to ending and starting songs, IREPRESS are masters of that, as well as allowing the songs to easily collide into one another.
The parts that come out and shine the most are the light, clean echoing melodies of the guitars, and the jangly chords. Everything is of course juxtaposed by having those heavy, dirty, distorted guitars come in, but unfortunately for so much material that sounds like it should be flowing and building, then slowing and calming, many times a light portion instantly stops due to being slammed into by the heaviness. The attempts at choppy riffs in the middle of the song also disrupt the flow of everything.
I know I’m making this sound a lot worse than it really is, as the individual portions themselves are excellent, it’s just the arrangement that throws everything off. All too often, “Samus Octology” sounds as if IREPRESS is trying to turn the album into a roller coaster ride, when instead they should let the music be a lazy river and tell a story.
7/10
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