Igorrr

If you ask Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater what he thinks is the best album of 2025, his answer would be Amen by Igorrr. Perhaps Mike never listened to Igorrr’s earlier works, but after everything Gautier Serre has already accustomed us to, it’s hard to imagine something truly new and astonishing. Already with Spirituality And Distortion (2020) there was a sense of repetition, and Serre is probably the last musician one would expect to stay trapped in a comfort zone. Amen therefore starts from a clear axiom: always surprise, at any cost. The result, however, only partially succeeds.

As usual, Serre coordinates a kind of “multinational” of musicians, among whom we find the Italian artist Lili Refrain, featured in two tracks (“Limbo” and “Ancient Sun”). Missing, though, is the vocal duo Laurent Lunoir and Laure Le Prunenec, replaced by Jb Le Bail and Marthe Alexandre, whose singing is less versatile and more monotone – a clear limitation compared to the theatrical richness of Savage Sinusoid.

The usual blend of extreme metal, breakcore, and baroque leans more heavily toward metal this time, in at least eight of the twelve tracks. “Infestis” and “Pure Disproportionate Black And White Nihilism” are the most aggressive songs and – sacrilegious to say for Igorrr – also the most traditional. More convincing is the return to Middle Eastern textures with “Blastbeat Falafel”: a hilarious title for a track where the trademark delirium of genre mashups still works, though it may feel predictable to long-time fans.

The opener “Daemoni” combines metal, electronics, and acoustic fragments, clearly designed to shake live venues, while “Headbutt” stands out for its unexpected piano virtuosity, one of the album’s most imaginative moments. There’s also the customary pure breakcore track with “ADHD,” a single that perfectly showcases Serre’s expertise in that style.

The ending, however, brings the real surprises. In “Étude n°120,” a classical guitar solo sets the stage for the usual onslaught that would shatter the melody, but that chaos never arrives. It’s the album’s most unexpected choice. The same happens in “Silence,” Igorrr’s first true quasi-ballad, built like a classical sonata enriched with orchestration and only subtle breakcore intrusions. No longer violent fractures, but a delicate accompaniment into an alternative sonic world. Perhaps the track from which a new creative chapter might begin.

29/09/2025