Iskra

For some odd reason, I always equated black metal's hardcore nihilism back towards a more left-wing outlook where piss-ant ideals about god, nationalism, and authority were wiped away in a wave of bloodthirsty satanic liberation. While not necessarily satanic, Canada's Iskra certainly get the bloodthirsty part right with their very militant and explosively loud debut of blackened crust. How loud is this? try loud enough to blast the skin off your face. This album is excessive in volume, rage, and speed to the point where it seems like this music wants to reach out of whatever's playing it and kill you with its bare hands. This album was a signal that RABM was meant to be more than just a bunch of slogans and phrases put over black metal tremolos, but viable music that could out-aggressive a lot of their peers on a purely musical level. There is the problem of this thing just being a huge wall of anger barreling into you and little more, but that's kind of the point. This is perfect blackened crust for when simply protesting is just too little and you need to feel the violence, the force, and the unrest.

As stated before, a sheer overload of rage is essential to Iskra's debut. Everything is mixed to b as loud as possible and the two vocalists' animalistic snarling is made especially prominent. They sound like if a rabid pitbull mated with Seth Putnam, then had some freakish hybrid child whose only thoughts are fury and slaughter. Normally, it's important for lyrics to be understandable in political music like this, but the pure inarticulate rage spewing out of these guys does work well in a musical sense, even if the meaning in lost in the firestorm. Speaking of firestorms, the blistering riffs on this thing are insane. It's a barrage that feels like Discharge, Darkthrone, and Napalm Death on meth with the guitars raining riffs down on you like artillery into a wasted battlefield. The level of sonic excess on this thing makes it as satisfying and as brutal as crashing a pickaxe through a fascist's skull, especially on "Face of Capital", "Masters of War", and "Ash and Ruin" which are kickass hypersonic guitar volleys you could almost imagine shouting along to if the vocals were more discernable. Indeed, the vocals being hard to distinguish is a feature, but also a weakness of this album since a lot of this album can blend together as a result of that. None of it is ever bad, but it does reduce the power and identity of the otherwise excellent songs they have on roster. That can make this album kid of hard to stomach all in one sitting despite much of it being good. It kicks ass, it just needs something to set the tracks apart more. While it may want for variety, Iskra's excessive anger and blackened edge are great for your own episodes of rage, destruction, and fury at the injustices faced by most of the world right now.

If Sepultura wrote protest anthems, then Iskra are writing the soundtrack to a riot so fiery and violent that the riot cops would puss out and run away at the first sight of it. It's a whirlwind of savage shouting, fast-paced d-beat guitars mixed with black metal tremolos, and pulse-shattering tempos. Even with all of that being said, this thing does suffer from the shortcoming of only a few songs being distinct, and the lack of intelligible vocals contributes a lot to that problem. It's also easy for a lot of these songs to just blow right past you despite still being good. It makes for a somewhat memorable experience listening as an album, but much less so for the individual songs. Iskra is not terribly coherent, but it is wild, and this album still benefits a lot from how overcharged and motivated it is. Don't come here expecting high art, just savage blackened crust punk that overpowers everything with its exceptional levels of rage.