We’re just like everyone else when it comes to records we anticipate heavily and count down the days to their arrival. Writing about music every week doesn’t dampen our excitement for new material from bands we like a lot, or from ones that hold a lot of promise, and we’re lucky enough to get to hear them a little bit earlier than most. We have a killer one of those today.
German doom pounders Eremit put out one of our favorite EPs last year, their “Desert of Ghouls” that still gets a lot of play here to this day, but our focus quickly shifted to “Bearer of Many Names,” their second collection of mammoth killers. This record isn’t exactly more of the same from the band, though their guttural doom basement surely remains intact. The band—vocalist/guitarist Moritz Fabian, guitarist Pascal Sommer, drummer Marco Backer—plays a lot more with blackened and sinister sounds as well as loud/soft dynamics. You sometimes have to struggle to hear part of the first six minutes of the album, but that’s by design so that when the power kicks in, it does so with maximum effect, feeling like it’s splattering your guts all over the place all of a sudden.
“Enshrined in Indissoluble Chains and Enlightened Darkness” is the beastly epic of an opener, running a monstrous 29:22, and starting like a ghost entering the room. The first six minutes play with softer sounds as the guitars quietly trickle, creating an atmosphere that sets you at ease. And then it ends. The band explodes with speed, going for black metal-style power and ferocity that begin to open wounds as the shrieks pound away. The band seems hellbent to destroy, but then they pull back just a bit, keeping properly heavy but settling more into doom. Melody stretches as the shrieks open graves and prepare bodies, switching the pace to drubbing. Growls bubble as the track remains burly and meaty, landing shots designed to weaken for submission. The pace changes up late as the melody remains, the air thickens, and the bass echoes. Moody sounds simmer in pain, and then the band lands their final vicious, violent shots, spiraling out into time.
“Secret Powers Entrenched in an Ancient Artefact” lasts a hefty 18:36, starting with fuzzy guitars and letting harsh shrieks have their way. The playing has glorious moments where light breaks through the murk, and the noises sizzles with power, opening a portal into hell. The track then goes cold before the playing pummels, the riffs smother, and devastation keeps lapping, entering back into the fog and a heavy dose of feedback. Closer “Unmapped Territories of Clans without Names” runs 18:27 and starts with drums tapping and the guitars hanging in a haze. The track then opens the earth’s crust and rumbles hard as the band mauls and goes to battle, with the shrieks leveling whatever is in front of them. The vocals wrench guts, spreading the pain as the drums lay waste, and mournful leads begin to haunt. The leads glimmer, murky doom thickens, and the shrieks wails hard, hammering their creation deep into space to freeze beyond comprehension.
“Bearer of Many Names” is one of the more heavily anticipated records for us this year, and this thing absolutely delivers from front to back. Eremit show an obvious progression from their debut record, adding blackened edges to what they do and finding ways to make things more dangerous and volatile even as they maintain their elegant doom edge. This is a massive statement, a world-toppling record that announces Eremit as your new doom destroyers, a band that’ll take the sub-genre to new heights based on brute strength and punishment.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/EremitDoom
To buy the album (U.S.), go here: https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
Or here (Europe): https://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.de/shop-en_1
Meat Mead Metal 