Band:	Izah
Album:	Finite Horizon/Crevice
Style:	Sludge metal
Release date:	2008

01. Finite Horizon
02. Crevice

Hailing from the home of the awesome Roadburn Festival, Tilburg, Netherlands, the sextet Izah play a mixture of metal, post-metal, and hard core. Late 2008 saw the release of their Finite Horizon/Crevice EP, featuring two songs titled "Finite Horizon" and "Crevice" respectively. Both tracks on this release exceed 10 minutes in length and showcase the band's musical stylings.

Both songs follow the same basic structure - they kick off with a heavy slab of groove riffing , shouted vocals, and some cool looping basslines before mellowing out considerably a few minutes in to a far more serene clip with clean vocals and atmospheric guitars. The intensity then builds up again - but not quite to the furious heights of the initial portion of the track.

If this were a fishing expedition, the first part of the songs, before the shift, would be akin to fishing with a grenade, whereas the more mellow parts would be fishing with just a good old rod and reel. Personally, I was not particularly snared by the bombast of the opening salvo, but found myself, hook in mouth, being drawn in by the later half of both tracks.

The musicianship is good, they play well, and the slower bits enable them to create a fitting atmosphere. Perhaps the best part of the shift, though, is in the vocal department. While the first portion of the song features the vocals typical of the noise/post-metal which I find a bit annoying, the second half, where Entius sings cleanly, are another story. His vocals are not perfect, but there is an emotional honesty in them, particularly on drawn-out notes, that resonated with me. Even when they resorted to some harsher vocals later in the tracks, the slower pacing of the track coupled with alternate harsh/clean phrasing at this point made them a lot more palatable than the cadence-like shouting early on.

I really liked the closing sections of both tracks - while the music was not as harsh, it just felt more powerful - like the awesome spectacle of an approaching storm on the horizon.

While Izah are not exactly blazing new trails musically, they do play a well executed post metal in the vein of Isis and Cult Of Luna. If you are a fan of either, or the genre, be sure to check out Finite Horizon/Crevice as it is worth your time. Oh, and the fact the band has made it available for free download means you don't have any excuses not to.