Review Summary: Raw, primal and heavy as a road steamer, Elder’s self-titled debut transports it’s listener into a world of mud and blood.
Hailing from Boston, Massachusetts Elder rightfully found themselves as one of the new shining stars of the stoner rock underground with their second release, 2011’s “Dead Roots Stirring”. A crushing mixture of Black Sabbath’s proto-doom, the thick, overdubbed guitar sound of Electric Wizard and rich, textured songwriting, the album was one of the major highlights of that year. Proving that despite the genre’s runaway popularity over the past decade, there still bands that can deliver the incense filled air of psychedelic guitar-wielding in exciting ways. But make no mistake, despite the stratospheric heights of “Dead Roots Stirring” and “Lore”, the trio’s lesser known debut is no weak start either.
While we can line up the band’s main influences all day long, the S/T record clearly sets out to continue the legacy of one certain group both in sound and songwriting, and that is none other than the legendary Sleep. From the rough, unpolished yet dynamic production, to the continuous but infectious mid-paced, 4/4 riffs to the ethereal, reverb-filled, echoing guitar solos, the fingertips of Matt Pike are all over the place. And while this doesn’t make Elder’s early material very original, the energetic and varied delivery of the muddy riffs, certainly makes them much more than simple copycats.
If the average song length clocking is over six-seven minutes, the danger of monotony certainly looms over, but with these guys we don’t have to fear from that. From the opening tingling bass lines of “White Walls”, “Elder” delivers an almost clockwork-like combination of chugging, muddy but also catchy guitar accords, ranging from slow, devastating doom metal crawls to bluesy, hard-rock rhythms. Also this opening song also introduces an unexpected but certainly unique usage of keyboards which brings a major, 1970’s vibe into the modernized, hard-edged stoner music.
From the dynamic tempo shifts of “Hexe” or the detuned headbanger that is “Ghost Head” the album never loses steam or momentum, as the sometimes morose riffing, other times adventurous signature changes are held together by the band’s tight and focused performance. Jack Donovan’s vacuum-like bass booms low, the guitars are both fuzzy, filthy yet audible and vicious, and Nick DiSlavo’s vocals are also add the atmosphere of the music with hoarse shouting and grunting resembling eerily close to the legendary Sleep frontman Al Cisnernos.
All of these unite full force in the album’s main highlight, the two-parter “Riddle of Steel”, which in its combined 18 minutes, features every side of the band from the scorching riffs to spacey, jam rock breakdowns to solo sections that sound like if Deep Purple had just smoked a million joints. Although their sound and songwriting only developed and grew more and more over the years (evidenced by their fantastic follow-ups), Elder self-titled debut already shows a band not only familiar with the tropes of their genre but also having enough crative firepower to make a memorable impact.
