Erra – Impulse

Impulse is Erra’s debut release, but you wouldn’t know it. Mixing Emo, Hardcore and Metal with as much precision as some of the guys who’ve been doing it for years, these guys are possibly one of the most accomplished sounding bands you’ll hear in a while.

For starters, the metal aspect of what they do is pretty strong. Although breakdowns happen a bit too regularly at times, there’s also plenty of good metal sections that don’t rely on clichés. In addition, they manage to pull off a very abrasive sound whilst also remaining quite technical with a lot of what they do. Where they begin to fall down is in the lack of variation in many of their songs. There is a difference between being creative with song structures, and just not having them. Sadly, many of the songs can be classified in the latter of the two. On a positive note, the sung sections which characterise Metalcore do not always appear in every song, which is nice because it means what’s coming next isn’t always what you expect.

Ultimately, this record is flawed in the same places as many Metalcore records. The vocals aren’t necessarily horrible; they’re listenable enough, but it just feels like the lyrics are just an arbitrary by-product of having to make noise with your mouth. Be it screams or singing, they just become monotonous and your ears tune them out to listen to the much more interesting music. This leaves the songs sounding heartless and cold, as if they’ve been constructed as opposed to written. Erra may sound accomplished, but they are so emotionally deficient, that it makes it almost impossible to connect with what they do.