Unimpeachable Madness

I feel that I should probably like Cirrhus’s sophomore album Unimpeachable Madness more than I do but there’s something that just doesn’t translate well for me. There’s nothing really wrong with it, but the whole thing just ends up bleeding together and even though it keeps things relatively brief at just over half an hour, I have a hard time staying interested throughout.

Cirrhus play a pretty big and bombastic brand of black metal, with some death metal inflections bleeding into the overall vibe. Unimpeachable Madness consists of mid-pace tremolo riffing for essentially the entire duration of the album. The riffs aren’t bad in and of themselves but most of them aren’t particularly impressive and they all end up bleeding together. There are some riffs that are clearly intended to be epic and uplifting, but they just don’t really have that much of an impact.

It's the little extras that keep this from completely descending into full-blown monotony. There are some well executed shimmering keys in the mix that do liven things up a little. The one thing that really stood out to me is when the lead guitar gets all scraggly and writhes madly underneath the riff. These parts show up a few times and they’re always really cool. The melodic lead guitar parts can also be pretty alright and are at the very least a nice break from just the riffs. The drumming is also a highlight, being energetic and very well performed. The blasts are cool and everything, but it’s when the dude breaks into a more upbeat punky rhythm that the drums really capture my attention.

I think it’s the production that really hinders this. The production is far from raw and is very successful at making Unimpeachable Madness sound big and bombastic. However, the constant bombast gets quite tiresome after a while and the lack of dynamic range does a lot to make this all bleed together. While Cirrhus’s sophomore isn’t a bad album, this will stop me from coming back to it.