What Screamo can do...
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| Irma - "Del nostro scontento" Label: DIY |
I don’t know much about IRMA or their LP except they’re Italian and it shreds. The album kicks off with 3 tracks of simply great, blistering, chaotic Hardcore-inflected Screamo. Riveting and unrelenting, it’s pure joy to listen to.
"Megaterra" sets the tone for what is to come, hurtling downhill like a runaway train. Driven by tight, propulsive drumming, there’s little interest in shifts of tone, tempo, or dynamics. It’s fast, claustrophobic, and great. This is followed by "L’altra riva", by far my favourite track on this LP. Its central riff evokes a personal nostalgia for POISON THE WELL, perhaps in the way the guitar is allowed to float early in the song to set a more elegiac tone above the relentless pummeling underpinning it. It is linear, charging hardcore imbued with melancholia, angst, anger, and dissonance.
"Un centinaio di infelicità" exists purely for its breakdown. And it’s a good one. Preceded by 30-odd seconds of chaos, then a groovy as hell lead in punctuated by scorching open hats, a great bassline, and the pretty interplay of counterpoint rhythm between vocals and guitar. Everything is wound so tight that when it breaks, it’s stunning. Screamo needs more breakdowns. Or maybe it doesn’t, I don't know, but it’s fucking rad here.
After the sublime pummeling of the first 3 tracks, the LP shifts gear somewhat, moving into more melodic terrain. Sort of sitting in between these shifts is "Puro gelo cobalto", which reminds me of "Damnation"-era THE NATION BLUE. Less melancholic in tone perhaps, certainly with less characteristic screamo chord choices, it carries "Damnation"’s interest in invoking the everyday, of suburbia, alternative rock radio and daily freeway commutes, and rendering them as (explicitly) alienated, desolate, and menacing.
What follows is more uneven, the music is a bit less immediate, visceral, and arresting. Yet there are still plentiful moments of beauty throughout. The backend of "Nessun posto è segreto nel buio" with its call and response cries is gorgeous. "Come quando foglie" is a highlight, oscillating between rage and beauty seamlessly. It does that great thing screamo can do, making harsh and aggressive noise tender and affecting.
"Del nostro scontento" is an exciting album. Both in terms of its great music, but also in the wider sense of where this sort of music is situated in 2024. I believe it’s in an exciting place. Much of the music here is intense and ferocious, its Hardcore inflections give it serious weight and movement. It’s frequently heavy, heady, and exhilarating. Essential listening.
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