IristOrder of the Mind

Do you remember that scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day where Sarah Connor gets literally blown away by Skynet’s nuclear holocaust as she beats on a cyclone wire fence? The first track of this album, Eons, feels exactly like that.

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Oh yeah, right, Irist. You’re probably wondering who these people are. Argentinian Pablo Davila (guitar) and best friend from Chile Bruno Segovia (bass) formed the band in 2015. Moving to Atlanta, Georgia. Adam Mitchell (guitar) and Jason Sokolic (drums) joined soon after. Brazilian vocalist and beefmaster general Rodrigo Carvalho came in to complete the line-up. How do they sound? Imagine Gojira and Mastodon had a kid with the last name Cavalera. Then that kid puts on shades and beats up your kid for his lunch money. This kid also gets laid on the regular.

But the hits come like a prizefighter drilling on a speedbag, an impossibly tight, throaty, and muscular sound also capturing the atmospherics of their French djenty brethren. Burning Sage: The Cleansing (how good is that name?!) takes the hard-hitting then tripped out formula of Mastodon and spirals into a fever storm of expansive vocals and swampy, marauding riffs. If the guitars aren’t talking, drums bound in, Sokolic wearing out all of his skins all over the distant yet no less menacing Severed. Creation is their homage to The Way of All Flesh, Carvalho scream-singing unbroken for ungodly lengths at a time as Mitchell, Segovia, and Davila unite to grind out candied, multi-layered riffs.

You can’t make Blood Mountain, From Mars to Sirius, or Beneath the Remains twice. But you can come damn close, and Order of the Mind is it

I’m not saying Dead Prayers, Order of the Mind, or Insurrection could’ve come from Chaos A.D; but pure tribal-influenced aggression like that only comes from one source. Harvester reels in their speed for a heart-felt yet definitely not a ballad, the type made famous by Fear Factory or Pantera way back when. Carvalho laments as the band lays down haunting guitar, plucked and ringing out whole to hit you right in the feels. The Well is balls out aggression, where that Cavalera kid comes back for your retainer. The band maintain a hardcore level of energy, levelled off in another not-ballad, Nerve; guitars chime from on high and Carvalho whispers secrets of the universe. All this before blasting off into realms unknown and bringing back riffs from those gnarly nether dimensions.

You can’t make Blood Mountain, From Mars to Sirius, or Beneath the Remains twice. But you can come damn close, and Order of the Mind is it.

STANDOUT TRACKS: Eons, Burning Sage: The Cleansing, Harvester
STICK THIS NEXT TO: Mastodon, Sepultura, Gojira