Ira: The Body And The Soil

From Germany comes Ira, a group that wants to rock out with hard heavy metals riffs while at the same time lure you in with sweet melodies. However, the lead off “Soil” is stuck in some sonic mud, plodding and prodding for at times an agonizing nine minutes. Less is sometimes more but you’d be hard pressed to tell these guys. After a tedious “Drone”, Ira come back with another epic ditty called “You’re Living All Over Me”, which opens up very tenderly and continues down this path for the first third. Then the guitars chime in for a better than expected result. Unfortunately, when you start hitting 15 minutes for one song, it better be damn good. “Disappear” is that long but is not good, just another deliberate, theatrical attempt at thick, beefy hard rock in the vein of Queensryche. The only redeeming portions come during the focused and strong “Long Live The Parts I” and “Love Live The Parts II”. It’s a record that is daring but at times rather dull.