A fifth album that’s full of surprises
This January, metal band Infected Rain released their latest album, Ecdysis, to the public. Ecdysis is the group’s fifth album since forming in 2008 and their first release since Endorphin was released in 2019.
Infected Rain was formed in 2008 in Moldova by three people: Guitarist Vadim Ozhog, lead vocalist Elena Cataraga (aka Lena Scissorhands) and Ivan Kristioglo (aka DJ Kapa.) The group received immediate recognition by performing in the Red Alert Festival in Crimea in the same year.
Infected Rain has been very busy over the last fourteen years performing metal festivals all over, from the aforementioned Red Alert in 2008 to Metal Heads’ Mission in 2009. This attention led to Infected Rain releasing their first album, Asylum in 2009. The group signed with Austrian-based label Napalm Records in 2019 after being independent for eleven years. With the release of Ecdysis in 2022, Infected Rain now has five albums to their name. The current lineup consists of Lena Scissorhands on vocals, Ozhog and Serghei Babici on guitars, Vladimir Babici on bass and Eugen Voluta on drums.
Ecdysis excels with both its instrumentals and vocals. The guitars are fast-paced, with hard riffs that keep the listener fully engaged in the song. The drums give each track a metalcore edge, which keeps them refreshing. The bass playing, however, is what really sets each track apart from one another. An example of this is in the third song “Longing” where it seems to want to focus on its use of guitars before adding in bass about a quarter of the way through, slowing the song down and then speeding it back up again with its guitars.
This album has a lot of similar dynamic shifts. “Goodbye” sounds at first like it’s going to be sorrowful and slow-paced, but it tricks the listener by kicking back in with fast-paced guitars. The song then slows back down with its addition of bass and a softer use of vocals before speeding back up.
Ecdysis also manages to surprise the listener with its use of vocals as well. Ozhog’s vocals are angry while Cataraga’s vocals are softer and more slow-paced. The two different approaches complement each other perfectly, playing off each other’s drastically different styles.
Overall Ecdysis is a fine addition to Infected Rains’ resume. The instrumentals are renewed and different from each other more times than not which keeps the listener engaged with what they are listening to. The vocals fit perfectly with the instrumentals and the variations between Ozhog’s more masculine and Cataragas’s more feminine vocals play off each other as their differences of style and sound make the song that much more enjoyable. Both older and newer metal fans will appreciate Ecdysis’s different use of vocals and instruments, appealing to both groups of fans.
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