Ire [CD], Parkway Drive, CD

It’s fitting that the video for the first single from Parkway Drive’s highly anticipated fifth album, Ire, features band members risking their lives. To fully realise the concept for the “Vice Grip” video, Parkway members committed themselves to jumping out of aeroplanes, and the results are totally mindblowing. In a way these demonstrations of risk-taking, of showing no fear, and of acquiring new skills could be a metaphor for the entire creation of Ire. Parkway Drive has taken a stunning creative leap, and produced what they consider to be a career-defining statement. The Australian powerhouse has tapped deep into its reserves of talent and creativity, and pushed themselves as musicians and songwriters to take their established sound to another level. Ire retains all the hallmarks of classic Parkway, but it’s clearly something brave and new. It’s bigger, heavier, more melodic and has more depth to it than anything they’ve done in the past.