Victory Records has become such an anomaly for me. After being one of the true stalwart metalcore/hardcore labels responsible for releasing albums by Integrity, Martyr AD, Damnation AD, Hatebreed, Earth Crisis and Thursday and even being the home to Between the Buried and Me for 3 absolutely classic albums, the label is just hard to get a read on nowadays.

Among rumors of being a difficult label to be on, the label now seems synonymous with bands like Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights, Tear Out the Heart, Farewell to Freeway, Design the Skyline, Emmure, Aiden, A Day to Remember and such. However, mired in their ambiguous roster is the quality acts like Darkest Hour, Wretched, Within the Ruins, a few hardcore hold overs in Terror, Ringworm and Comeback Kid, some death metal by way of Jungle Rot and Pathology and even a Canadian folk metal band, Blackguard.

So amid their recent typically Victory releases like Snow White’s Poison Bite, Counterparts, The Bunny The Bear and Tear Out the Heart, is buried this little gem. A fully corpse painted, Canadian (Quebec) symphonic black metal band called Erimha (Sumerian for ‘army’), that sound exactly like Dimmu Borgir. And it’s actually rather good, depending of course, on your level of like or dislike for Dimmu Borgir.

Let me say this again – if you like any of Dimmu‘s last couple of albums (notably Abrahadabra), you will absolutely love Erimha and this, their second album. It’s a bombastic, symphonic assault, with tons of sweeping orchestration and choirs over well produced, death metal-tinged black metal. Not shrill, tinny, tremolo picked black metal, but a burly, thick, Behemoth-ish sounding metal that’s pretty adept even without the epic keyboards glossing everything up majestically. After the requisite intro “Enlightenment”, “Ascetic” gets right to it with a sterling, classic Dimmu bombast with dramatic strings and brass providing a stirring backdrop.

And from there, that’s all you really need to know. The rest of the album’s 9 tracks (except interlude “Saunter to Extinction”) deliver essentially the same quality and formula. None of it is truly breathtaking, but for the obviously influenced style, it’s very well done. There is a good mix of more uptempo, rousing, symphonic laden blast beats (i.e “The Ritual of Internment”, ferocious “Verdict of the Soul”, “Cataclysmic Tides”) and slower, more militant marching moments (“Condemned to Desolation”) all rendered with a high level of theatrics. There is even a couple of longer more developed tracks in “Metaphysic Countenance” and 10 minute album closer “Metempsychosis” which sees the usual scream/bellow vocals delve into short lived but impressive ICS Vortex realms with some solid clean croons, further cementing the Dimmu hues, as if they really needed it.

Erimha and Reign Through Immortality is a really pleasant surprise from Victory Records, even if it’s an unabashed Dimmu Borgir rip off, it’s a good one. I hope the label continues to add more black and death metal to their roster instead of atrocious acts like The Victorian Halls and The Bunny The Bear.

[Visit the band's website]

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