Iskra are a band from Vancouver B.C, Canada that has been featured before in this zine and plays an anarchist mixture of black metal and crust and this is a review of t heir 2016 album "Ruins" which will be released in July by Southern Lord.
A very heavy and aggressive sound starts off the album along with some high pitched black metal screams a few seconds later and when the music speeds up a great amount of blast beats and tremolo picking can be heard which also gives the music more of a raw feeling while also mixing in the more aggressive side of thrash and crust.
At times the riffs get very melodic while the solos and leads are more rooted in an old school style of extreme metal while also mixing in some of the more modern melodic style and the songs also bring in a great mixture of slow, mid paced and fast parts while you can also hear all of the musical instruments that are present on the recording and the songs also mix in more of a current style of black metal that is also very heavily rooted in the Nordic style of the genre and the whole album also remains very heavy from beginning to ending of the recording.
Iskra plays more of a straight forward, modern and extreme style of black metal on this recording and moves way from t he more crust influenced style of previous recordings to create one of the heaviest albums released this year, the production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover anti capitalism, society and humanity themes.
In my opinion this is another great sounding recording from Iskra and if you are a fan of this band, you should enjoy this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Lawless" "Traume" "Aegis Of The Victor" and "Thieves Of Life". 8 out of 10.
http://www.iskracrust.com
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