I always feel that a band can say much before you even get to the music; artwork and titles can speak volumes. So with a cool band name, intricate artwork, and a loaded album title, in keeping with their two previous albums, you feel as if you have one foot in their world before you have even heard them play a note.
And then you drop the needle.
To call ‘Architect Effect’ merely alternative rock would be to constrict what it is I Plead Irony does so well. Alt-rock is certainly in there, but so is a punky attitude, a grungy grind, scintillating metal-esque guitar lines, sonic weight but also musical deftness, almost proggy dynamics built from lingering lulls and crescendoic (is that a real word?) highs, and so much more. Punch-packing value for money if ever there was.
Laying out such a complex sonic stall right from the off is perfect and sets the tone for what follows. ‘Inside the Lines’ dances deftly around the fringes of metal before throwing some funky curveballs into the mix; ‘Undone’ is an anthemic hard rock waltz…if you can imagine such a thing… ‘Look Out Below’ is pacey and poised, blending their trademark muscle with brilliant melodies, and ‘Death By Internal Combustion’ is a song as wonderfully strange as its title suggests; at times, everything from slightly mathy and staccato to serene to sonorous!
If you like your music heavy and harmonious, big and clever, you have come to the right place; if you are someone comforted by labels and pigeonholes…best you move along.
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