Esdrelon the place is known as the valley of Armageddon. There’s certainly an element of Armageddon about this band’s music. Hailing from Brazil, it is clear that they take inspiration from fellow countrymen Sepultura and US bands like Slayer, Pantera and Lamb of God. So you’ll get the idea that Esdrelon play full-on heavy metal. It’s aggressive and technical but ready to deviate from a pure thrash bash, a quality that I liked. Where “Agonizing in Faith”, the opener, is kind of a compilation of what they can do, this album really got going with “Living in Contradiction”. Glorious riffage and a rise into epic metal made this track special. For me, “Dust in our Eyes” never reached the same heights again after that. Over the second half of the album, the style was in fact more adventurous and branched out more, but I found myself in parts wondering what was going on.
It’s a great help that the power is conveyed via good overall sound quality, so there are layers of melody and aggression coming from different angles and joining up. Following in the pattern of the magnificent “Living in Contradiction” is another thunderous melo-lith, “Voices of the Exile”. It deviates into fantasy-land guitar playing at one point but its technicality is mostly saved for the main song which is coherent and typically punchy. Growled vocals match the death metal aggression which serves as an underscore to the whole album. I particularly enjoyed the bright and technical guitar melodies which ring through many of the tracks and provide a nice balance with all the dark atmospherics that are put on show. There is flamboyance but it is controlled. Then came “Fucking in the Name of God”, which had some of the above qualities but didn’t really add anything exciting at all. Similarly “Labor” had a tinge of darkness but unlike the earlier tracks lacked shape. The melodic chorus line of “We Are Sick” reminded me of Dark Tranquillity, but from strong beginnings I felt we were entering a section of songs without great character.
The title track plays with us. I would have expected fast-flowing aggression for a title track on an album like this, but it starts slowly, eventually breaking into a technically-driven metal song. There is a very strange folk-style interlude. While breaking the song up, it doesn’t work and isn’t helped by unconvincing harmonies. No, for me rampant death metal with growls and twists and turns and melody is where Esdredon is at. The track “Dust in Our Eyes” takes on a punishing aspect, which was good, but then heads off into widdly metal solo territory. It ends after mindless repetition of the track and album title, confirming that this song just didn’t stand up for me. Again, there is the making of a good track in “Intimate Verses” but it’s too long for what it is. It’s well played, and stops and starts but instead of re-working the same theme to no purpose, it would have been better to have a quick thrash blast. The guitars fly at the end but the momentum was lost. At least the album ended on a high. “Disturbed” is excellent and reminiscent of earlier tracks with its forward-driving and dark tones. Flair and flamboyance abound to good effect.
It’s very easy to think you’ve heard this somewhere before but the aggressive and thrash/death metal on “Dust in Our Eyes” rises above the nondescript before swallowing itself a little in its own technicality as the album progresses. I can’t say that I liked every bit of this album and indeed most of the latter half left me cold, but when it good, I thought it was very good.
(6/10 Andrew Doherty)
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