IRM

power electronics

Power electronics / death industrial band from Sweden consisting of Erik Jarl and Martin Bladh. Martin Bladh and Erik Jarl had already known eachother for a few years when they began their mission as IRM in 1997. Fuelled by the rage of sonic power-houses like Whitehouse and Brighter Death Now, they recorded a demo tape that landed them a deal with Cold Meat Industry. Immediately upon its arrival, “The Red Album” was met by great enthusiasm as it breathed new life into a genre gone quite stagnant at the time. The sound displayed a unique amalgamation of Jarl’s analogue bass-heavy eruptions, and Bladh’s revelatory lyrics / vocals which were thematically more aligned with the apocalyptic preachings of Michael Gira than the confrontationalism of William Bennett. Also the monochrome cover designs that IRM chose to work with stood in stark contrast to the cheap shock tactics that had infested the power electronics scene for so long. On subsequent landmark albums such as Oedipus Dethroned and Virgin Mind IRM honed their sound and dug deeper into the maze of the human psyche, while in parallell both Bladh and Jarl have explored new aestetic avenues with diverse solo projects. More than ten years down the road, the adolescent debutants have become the revered minstrels of industrial gospel. This time Martin Bladh and Erik Jarl are joined by a third band member Mikael Oretoft on bass-guitar at album Order4. This new work by IRM is a deeper delving into the psyche of the self...