Elder Giants

I think if I were able to design my own black metal band and make it sound however I wanted, it would probably be a bit like Sun Worship. But don’t let that put you off! In their (admittedly extremely small) output to date, this German band draws together elements from various black metal currents; lots of the kind of rich melodies and surging riffs that one would expect from a top-tier European act combined with the kind of stretched-out, windswept approach to songwriting you get with the likes of Ash Borer. Their Surpass Eclipse EP impressed me a lot but it perhaps lost a bit of momentum on its second side, which was a bit thornier and more directly USBM-influenced. Not that the latter is necessarily a bad thing, but they were so outrageously good at the classic second-wave blasting that it seemed like an unwelcome break in the pace. Anyway, as a result, I was pleased that this debut full-length is a little more focused, and explores in depth the band’s penchant for exquisitely up-tempo meloblack.

Opener We Sleep is also the longest track here at over twelve minutes (there are only four in total, lasting 36 minutes). For the most part it is melodic black metal of a extremely classy variety, with shimmering tremolo patterns and a distant, howling vocal delivery. The melodic riffing is so well handled that you are immersed, and do not feel the running time dragging at all. Thus a pattern is laid down which the band rarely stray too much from, though perhaps they start to toy with more deliberately awkward and tangled ideas, for example later on in The Absolute is Becoming (Krallice was the reference I used in the review of the EP, and that works here, too). Maybe the highlight, however, is the intense and emotive title track. The almost uplifting tonalities of its otherwise violent riffing seems to me somewhat similar to (the much-underrated) Petrychor. The atmospheric electronica of closer Transneptunian hints at more eclectic interests which perhaps we will see explored and integrated on future releases. For now this is an important black metal debut: not necessarily breaking new ground, but synthesising various influences in a convincing and powerful way.