Debut EPs are a cruel spectator sport. Just enough to get you in a sweat but all too soon it’s over and then you have to decide who’s won and who’s lost. So often what sounds good in three tracks might sound a wee bit laboured in ten. I usually feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt just because it’s difficult to know if these are merely the two or three half-decent tracks that make it on to the majority of albums that come my way – or if this is the beginning of great things.
But the rare few shine with even the briefest of opportunities. So it is with Euclidean. Ok it’s certainly brief – just two tracks. But you know you have a great band when you think, ‘Sod agonising over how good the full release will be, I’ll happily just keep these two tracks on a loop for an hour or two’. The band has been around since 2010 honing their skills somewhere in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and the hard work shows. From the first doom-laden chords to the drifting black metal influences and vocals, the different shapes and angles begin to appear and then it all starts to feel, well, rather psychedelic and non-Euclidean. Various strands of time seem to be pulling in different directions and then together with some chaotic purpose. It’s heavy and portentous with slowing pounding, tribal drums but at the same time more like a release into something bigger and more expansive. Just close your eyes and accept that some things you feel may be beyond comprehension.
The second track is more than 10 minutes long and would have been an opportunity to flex the three-piece’s muscles had they not already done so with finesse in the first five minutes. But the trance-inducing sound strides further into the vast open caverns like a titan’s funeral procession. It’s a place where darkness and light clash in fatal consequence, scarring winds blow like a million shards of ice and unbearably beautiful deities look on with world-crushing sadness and delight in equal measure… No place for a mere mortal, then. But that is serious digression. Broadly, I’d describe this as doom but I’ve also heard it described as post-black metal (a label I struggle with, in this case… there was metal before black metal, I would like to point out…). Perhaps it’s best to see Euclidean as a perfect meeting of the two. I sincerely hope this EP is a taste of things to come but even if it’s not then these two tracks are worth dipping into for anyone who likes to be momentarily dragged by the scruff of their stinking black t-shirt into another glorious dimension.
(8.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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