Artist: Elder
Album: Omens
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
Country: Germany (Berlin) / US (Massachusetts)
Release Date: 24th of April, 2020
Released via Stickman Records
Cover Artwork © Stickman Records
Elder started as a classic Stoner Rock / Sludge Metal band. In the course of the last releases, but at the latest since the penultimate album Lore, a development more towards Space / Psychedelic / Progressive Rock took place and the arrangements often exceeded the 10 minutes significantly. With the EP The Gold & Silver Sessions from 2019, more keyboard / piano and analogue electronic / synthesizer elements were added to the sound. But the hard Stoner riffs were never neglected in this development and are still present in the sound of the band.
The current album Omens continues this now in a careful way but nevertheless consequently. The opener and title song of the album “Omens” illustrates this direction. The song starts with a piano and synthesizer intro before a hard Stoner Rock riff sets in, which immediately animates to nod your head. In the first third of the song, Elder take out the heaviness in a typical way and a spherical Space / Psychedelic Rock part follows, which is carried by piano and guitar before it gets harder again including Stoner riffs and guitar solos.
This continues on the further songs of the album on a high level, whereby the whole thing never gets boring due to the beautiful melodies and guitar harmonies – and there are always parts included that make you bang your head. It is difficult to emphasize one song in particular, because they are all about the same strength. This is perhaps most likely at the time of writing the review the song “Halcyon”. The song starts quietly with clean guitars, then increases to a formidable Heavy Rock / Psychedelic number and ends in the coda in a downright addictive synthesizer/piano melody, which is accompanied by heavy riffs.
In Europe, the album is released via Stickman Records in an azure blue marbled or bronze marbled (Stickman exclusive, limited edition) 180g vinyl version. In North America, other colors (gold/light blue mix, blue or classic black) of the vinyl are also available, but outside of North America they are only available as expensive imports. The album is accompanied by an 8 page booklet with the song texts and photos of the band during the recording process.
★★★★★★★★★☆
9 / 10
Favorite Tracks:
“Halcyon”
“In Procession”
As usual, we added the favorite track(s) to our Transcended Review Playlist 2020.
GUEST REVIEW
This review is written by our dear friend Dennis – we hope to get him as one of our authors one day.
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