Album review: Ghost Iris – Comatose

Denmark is not exactly renowned as a hotbed for metal, but a few bands have battled their way onto the international stage, Ghost Iris among them. Specialising in metalcore peppered with big choruses, the quartet are not offering up anything new, but now onto their fourth full-length – and having shared stages with the likes of Dream Theater – they are clearly doing something right. Unfortunately, whatever that might be is not abundantly obvious, with Comatose for the most part best described as being somewhat ‘meh’.

There’s no denying their chops. Their riffs are often as serrated as they are heavy, and they do bring a lot of weight to the party, hammering down hard as they strangle their instruments. Likewise, vocalist Jesper Vicencio Gün has quite the voice, whether he’s roaring like a beast or letting loose with his epic croon, backed up on the walloping Desert Dread by Chimaira’s Mark Hunter, who is a welcome addition to any metal record. It’s just that taken altogether it fails to really take flight and become more than the sum of its parts.

The clean chorus-free Paper Tiger definitely stands out as being more worthy, demonstrating how good they can be when they are not working to a formula. Likewise, Coda has a savagery to it that is deeply compelling before the generic chorus shows up and spoils things, and the same can be said for far too many of the 10 tracks here. Hulking closer Power Schism brings proceedings to a close on the same note as much that has preceded it, unlikely to suddenly win anyone over, and further alienate those put off by that which has come before.

Rating: 2/5

For fans of: Architects, Killswitch Engage, After The Burial

Comatose is released on May 7 via Long Branch

Read this: The 21 best U.S. metalcore albums of all time