29 March 2024
Kirra

Kirra – Redefine

Label: Eclipse Records
Releasedate: 31.01.2020

While Oklahoma City may be mostly known for its cowboy culture and surrounding oil wells, it is fast gaining notoriety for being home to KIRRA, the city’s most promising hard rock music export since Hinder. Since their journey began, they’ve endured one hell of a rollercoaster ride having toured with their idols and suffering the untimely loss of their lead vocalist just days before a national tour. Despite the ups and downs, these talented musicians kept their eyes focused on the goals at hand and managed to keep up the momentum, while never losing the spark for their love of music and being in a touring band.

Wow a 17-track album, don’t see that too often! Well not quite, the first track ‘Descent’ is a musical intro as bands would play during a show entrance.

Track 2 ‘Pull you out’, starts decent with distorted guitars, nice bass riff and a raw sounding vocals. Two distinct male vocals sing in turn and the guitarsolo 3/4 into the song sounds great.

‘Brooding’ starts off with singspiel against, guitars in the background. I expected it to grow out to be a full on metal song but helas it just continues slowly with drums and distorted guitars.

‘The Ideal’ has a promising start and sounds like a proper song with the hoarse vocal of Gabriel. Nice rocking song but misses that oomph, if you ask me. A heavy sounding ballad maybe?

‘Integrate’ starts with a computer game inspired tune, then mimicked by the guitars. More of the same but not really reaching that summum of metal.

Track 6 ‘Assimilate’, short sub-minute interlude, gives a wink to progrock but never picks up the pace to amaze. ‘I didn’t know’ is the next song, slow and almost acoustic ballad, in the second part of the song the pace picks up but fails to peak.

‘Blind’ is similar to track 7, cannot say much about it really. Track 9 ‘Ascent’ is yet another musical interlude by bass and drums.

‘Caving in’; slow distorted guitars lead in with some good riffs and crisp vocals. The first song on this album I actually enjoyed and influenced by blues.

‘Passageway’, heavy sounding blues – quite pleasant to listen to but not a headbanger.

‘Huxley’s Warning’, very heavily influenced by techno and an old fashioned voice over complete this song without substance.

Track 13 ‘Free, you would expect with this title that we are freed of the previous and something more innovative would emerge. But helas, they continue on their slow paced, with heavy guitars laden journey without a clear destiny.

‘Prophet’, nothing new, more of the same. Followed by ‘Shattered’; the guys are just plucking away on their guitars and bass for the first minute of the song. When the vocals come in, inconvincingly, they continue their quite uninspired song series.

‘Waking up’, again, is instrumental combined with a voice over, eventually turning into a jamming session.

‘Potential’, as it says in the title has the potential to be one of the better songs on this album. Quite light, with a good pace; supported by a good bass riff and the composition now definitely has metal influences.

Their music is described as alternative metal but I cannot find much metal in their songs. Too many confusing influences: techno, blues, too much instrumental and none of their songs really hit it with me. Just a nice album to listen to but not one I would listen to again and again. I expected more of these guys, but this really disappointed me.

Line up:

Daxton Page – Guitar/Vocals
Gabriel Parson – Lead Vocals
Ryne McNeil – Bass/Vocals
Zach Stafford – Drums

Kirra

Tracklist:
01 Descent
02 Pull You Out
03 Brooding
04 The Ideal
05 Integrate
06 Assimilate
07 I Didn’t Know
08 Blind
09 Ascent
10 Caving In
11 Passageway
12 Huxley’s Warning
13 Free
14 Prophet
15 Shattered
16 Waking Up
17 Potential

Links:

Facebook
Official