Uragh "Maelstrom" Album Review

 

   On the rare ocassion a new band will come to fruition and for some unknown reason you'll think they've being playing for a very long time,this is the effect the absolute force of nature Progressive Metal act Uragh have had on me when i first witnessed them live for the first time almost a year ago at the Grand Final of Metal 2 The Masses 2023,since then they've continued to garner a wider audience with their stellar live shows, a few months ago they entered JSR Audio  to record their absoutely earth shattering debut album Maelstrom, i knew they ahd something special for us all but nothing prepared me for the absolute magnitude of quality within this album.

   Straight from the off they go for the jugular with the full on assualt of  Monarch, the Pounding Bass and Drums drive a barage of  disorientating riffs combined with a visceral vocal delivery,the lyrical theme with this is about a Baroness who rules over a district and rules over them through fear and subjugation,the line "Let The Rats Fight Amongst Themselves" shows the level of disdain she has for them, the rhytnm sections throughout Apparition are unnervingly dark and relentless with the Guitar intertwining and meandering through various time signatures leaving your brain mangled and continously guessing what sort of mind blowing passages are on the horizon, the pace and relentlessness is brought down a bit for the short atmospheric bassline interlude of  Gewissenbiss, this serves as a nice way of splitting proceedings before the next part of the relases.

 

   We're treated to the mid paced groov laden heaviness of the brilliant The Widening Gyre the Guitar passages are taken to another level of abrasiveness the combination of those crushing grooves and screeching guitars are like  a short sharp shock to the senses,the drumming gradually builds an atmosphere,then we're thrown another bit of a curveball with the clean vocal passage this adds a really passionate and awe-inspring element to  the overall product.

  At This stage of the album you think you've heard everything the band are capable of doing,not likely with the absolutely mind blowing Capsize which drags you every which way through plenty of Progressive passages with amazing clean vocal delivery then switching into barages of Death Metal brutality,at times during this you feel like your been tossed through a grinder then floating through dream-like psychedelic passages which ,the way Vocalist Craig Murphy orchestrates the different vocal styles between the clean and aggressive is like some puppet master controlling all your emotions, this next track Ar An Tra Fholamh is really interetsing and feels like some sort of time lapse ,having the spoken word As Gaeilge adds a really eery and dream like sequence as if your lost in some sort of upside down alternate reality

    There's still more superlatives left to explore within this monumental offering especially when were treated to more groove infused heaviness with Regrowth At The Mouth Of Sickness ,the levels of crushingly heavy passages throughout this are mind numbing ,combine that with the trademrk fantastic rhytmn section and the absolutely amaizng lead guitar work of  Marcelo Varge and you have a track of truly epic proportions, another things that needs to be pinted out is the fantastic bassline of Sebastian Sparr and the phenomenal drumming from Jason Hodgkins these become even more prevelent throughout the quality El Cazador which throws up even more disorientating passages, closing track Mo Dhia Mhaith remember i mentioned the clean vocals well they're more to the fore throughout this track, if you're thinking the add a similar feeling to the other times ,not a chance this time they're have a melancholic aura to them which adds extreme levels of vitriol to the aggressive ones,the epic structure throughout this is absolutely phenomenal and is the perfect way to close out this part of the bands stories.

  

Not only is it mind blowing to believe this is the bands debut album but also that thet formed less then 2 years ago,although the members may have previously been in other band before,the levels of how tight and brilliantly structured the whole album is a monstrous testament to how much hard work and attention to detail they put into not just this release but also their live performances,which i may add are a sight to behold is, Maelstrom is possibly up there with one of the best debut albums from an irish Metal act,this is definitely a bonafide contender for album of the year for me and i will add this is only the beginning of what this band will deliver in the future.

RATING: 9.8/10

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