From their EPK, “The melodic death band IRA TENAX have been making their mark on the German metal scene since 1999. In 2024, the quartet are not only celebrating their 25th anniversary, but are also releasing a new album 10 years after their last long-player "Portrait Of The Fallen" from 2014. "Dark Awakening," the title of the new output, impresses with classic trademarks on its 11 tracks, both from the band itself and from melodic death metal as it has been present since the mid/end of the nineties.” The album has eleven “chapters,” or songs, and “Prologue” is first, and it’s a short intro. “Beginning of the end” is the first proper track. It is fast, and aggressive out of the gate, and the harsh vocals are near guttural. Like many Melo-Death bands however, they seem to do the Death side better than the melody side. “Council of the Old” has a somewhat thin main riff. There are ominous qualities to the song but if it can’t be thickened, it will have trouble getting off the ground. The fifth song presents the first bit of variation we have so far on the album, and the clean guitar intro is actually quite nice. However, it is dashed soon after by a barrage of open notes. The clean vocals are a bit of a nice twist as well as the melodic leads.

“Final betrayal” is another contentious sound much like the others on the album, and the band isn’t pushing much in the way of variation so far. Indeed, they are playing it to safe. “Endless pain” is yet another aggressive song that the album is littered with, and at this point in the album, that is literally all that we have heard so far. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a bad sound at all, it is just repetitive and uncreative. “Last endeavor” begins with some creepy leads, offering at least some variation. But, it falls back to that same sound too quickly. “Aftermath” closes the album. The piano notes are excellent, as is the building ambiance. It really has a great sound, but it’s too little, too late for me. As I mentioned, this isn’t a bad album at all. However, the experienced band relies too much on the same formulas of the past. I would rather hear a band try and fail then to just rest on what worked for them on previous albums.