Intoxicantations

Ilsa's 2010 sophomore album was a big deal. When it saw re-release a year later, it came at a time when it couldn't have been better received: the old-school death metal revival was still in full swing, allowing the band's doomy, OSDM-flavored dirges a platform to play up their prominent crust influences at a time when crust was really making a name for itself crossing over via hybridization with underground metal. The band succeeded, largely due to their utterly convincing performance on Tutti il Colori del Buio.

So two years had gone by, a fairly standard between-album wait period by anyone's reckoning, and Ilsa brought us this follow-up to that lauded bit of sonic despair. First things first, the good news: Ilsa do not play saxophones or incorporate dubstep on this album. They don't have harmonized guitar solos or soaring clean vocals. They didn't hire Dan Swano to produce. This is a true sequel, a band not treading water but rather reveling in a sound they helped to define.

What we have here are once again signature Ilsa riff-beasts. Let me clarify: not “riff-beasts” in the Helstar sense, but in the sense that each of these guitar lines was crafted to be as filthy, ugly and primitive as possible. Imagine Eyehategod's sludge sound, except replace the old hardcore with scuzzy American crust in the vein of His Hero Is Gone and replace the traditional doom with cigarette smoke and whiskey haze dank dive-bar death/doom in the vein of Coffins or Cianide. Sludge for a new generation, with absolutely zero regard for the “atmospheric sludge” of Neurosis's disciples. Everything is dead-simple, letting the mammoth guitar tone set the mood while the riffs simply hammer you into submission. The bass largely follows the guitar, adding to the weight of the thing, with both guitars chugging through the murk in unison with a few notable departures where the right-channel axe pulls out into a really simple lead line (“Man-Made Monsters”). Sometimes there are even swedeath-ish tremolo lines (“The Scream”). Feedback fills the empty spaces.

Quite unfortunately, the drums don't really receive the same love as the guitars. The cymbals are mostly fine and the toms have plenty of weight, but the snare sounds tiny and a million miles away. The bass drums have two modes: nice and thuddy during the double bass, but quite tame and skirting the edges of audibility during the slower timekeeping sections. Since the album rumbles along at midpaced or slower, the lack of a powerful mix on the drums definitely detracts from the album's power and is further hamstringed by the generally tame drum performance. Some fills are neat but my favorite doomy drummers know that it's largely on their shoulders to keep one's interest going when the riffs are this straightforward.

For the uninitiated, the vocals used throughout this album are definitely of a tortured crust/hardcore variety, pained midrange harsh yells drawn out at the ends of the lines for maximum misanthropy. They're probably a pretty strong dividing line for some people, as fans of death/doom who don't really have a taste for this style could find them a reason for immediate dismissal, as they're prominent in the mix (due more to tone than volume, really) but they could also serve as a draw for crust/hardcore fans who don't often find themselves listening to metal.

Oddly enough, the album's main problem is that its most engaging moments are its faster ones. Tracks like “Say You Love Satan” and “The Scream”, with their punkier energy, d-beats and more pronounced death metallish feel trump the dirgier songs, such as the title track. This stands in stark contrast to their previous outing, in which the sprawling “Blue Moon Haze” stood not only has the album's centerpiece but also its musical highlight. During the faster moments, I can't help but compare the band to vaguely similar acts, like contemporaries Black Breath, who I feel just get the whole OSDM/crust thing and take it to truly wonderful places, or even bands that can't write a bad death/doom riff even if they try, like Asphyx. While Ilsa are certainly enjoyable, their faster material can't quite scratch that itch the same way some of their peers do. They've got more room to shine when they slow it down, and they just don't capitalize on that as well on Intoxicantations as they did before.

That said, the band shows no signs of changing directions, so as long as they stick with their guns, there are likely to be better albums in their future. Still, if you liked the last one you'll probably wreck your neck with this. And no matter your nitpicking or quibbles with the bands recorded material, they're absolutely a force of nature live.