Irk are a noise rock band from the UK and this is their second album.
I got to The Seeing House far later than I wanted to or should have. Despite earmarking it for review, it somehow slipped through my Carefully Crafted and Highly Professional reviewing process, only surfacing once more to shout in my face about a month and a half or so after I should have written about it. D’oh! Ah well, better late than ever, eh?
The Seeing House delivers a compelling mix of noise rock, mathcore, punk, and something else that’s hard to define. Probably a lot of something elses, in fact. I maintain that Irk have some Sultans of Ping FC in their DNA. Alongside this, you’ll find all manner of other things. I’ll throw a few names out, because why not – Association Area, Chat Pile, Coilguns, Converge, Hawkeyes, KEN Mode, Kowloon Walled City, Today Is the Day, and more. Hell, Irk probably listen to none of these bands, but they spring to my mind in certain places regardless.
Angular is a key word with Irk. As is jagged, albeit in an angular way. See? There’s that word again. It keeps popping up. Irk’s music is fuelled, driven, and led by the bass guitar, which is very angular in nature. Ha! Who knew we’d be seeing that word again, eh? Who knew? Irk aren’t one trick ponies though. No, they’re multilimbed mutant ponies, with many arms, tentacles, and cybernetic enhancements. There is also the worm factor, but we’ll get to that later.
Across 39 minutes Irk bounce, groove, and rhythmically gyrate through ten songs of what can only be described as atypical rock ‘n’ roll mathcore experiences. Irk take their many influences, grind them up into a fine paste, thrust a few iron rods through it all at funny angles, (did you see what I did there?), and then laugh all the way to the mad scientist’s mansion. It’s great stuff. The first time I listened to this record, I immediately put it on again once I had finished it. Yep, it’s damn moreish, and has a pretty individual flavour. Please Irk, can I have some more?
So, The Seeing House then. I think Irk have something quite special going on. They play a style that could easily come sooooo close to being annoying, novelty, throwaway, messy, or what have you, but somehow manage to hold their ramshackle creations together with remarkable grace and skill. The Seeing House does a lot across its running time, and it does all of it very well. It shouldn’t work, but it does. The Seeing House is shockingly infectious, unexpectedly contagious, in fact. It’s a slow burning wormy parasite of an album, one that takes its time to properly burrow into your meaty brain, but once it gets there, it’s locked in and a real bugger to get rid of. Ahhh, Irk. One day I’ll catch you live and finally excise these brainworms good and proper. Until then, I’ll revel in the superlative angular rhythms of The Seeing House.
“I’m just an ideas man I can’t be held to account”, agggh GET OUT OF MY BRAIN DAMN YOU IRKWORM!
Wonderbox Metal 