EREMIT – Desert Of Ghouls
- Posted on 14-08-2020
Can you think of something more boring in music than a minimalistic sludge/doom nearly 70 minute long record? Yet that was precisely the case with Eremit’s debut "Carrier Of The Weight" (2018) album – 3 (too) long tracks of 1-2 riffs, spanning from 11 to a whopping 33 minute (!) length without a hint of justification in terms of quality or variety. Nevertheless, this Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, German trio featuring Moritz Fabian (guitars, vocals), Pascal Sommer (guitars) and Marco Bäcker (drums) persisted with a recently released EP of two tracks of the pretty much the same substance with a slight variation for the same, in my view poor, result.
First of all, while you can clearly hear the bass guitar, either it was an uncredited session bassist or Fabian has one more function, a mystery which adds to my dislike of this album. The nearly 9 minute opener, "Beheading the Innumerous" is basically one boring riff which sounds like a "Roots" Sepultura leftover with a barely detectable variation toward the end and, finally, a surprising speed up before its conclusion, nothing persuading me to change my mind I had about the debut. The 2nd track, the over 12 minute "City of Râsh-il-nûm" owes much to Tool’s "Eulogy" in terms of introduction which makes it actually impressive (thus the added 0.5 point) until about halfway where the heavy guitars enter to ruin it again despite some pace variations. And that is all.
Much like the debut, the new Eremit’s EP shows that not everyone who makes metal can offer something worthwile and captivating. There’s too much simplicity, minimalism and not enough variation and, you’ll shoot me, but I hate that boomy sound that drowns out the precious few details. Take this thing hence!