There’s no stopping Hungarian groove thrashers Ektomorf even if Covid left founding member Zoltàn Farkas full of “pain, hate, anger and disappointment at ungrateful people.” What else was he going to do but turn it all into an angry album? This is the 14th from the band over a three-decade career. It started with albums mainly sung in native tongue before they moved to English and eventually caught the attention of Nuclear Blast and the wider world. I remember seeing them live on a package tour at the Astoria at one point and have dipped into their albums now and again. Zoltàn has always had a bit of a revolving door policy and a huge amount of members have changed over the years. Half the current line-up has only been recruited since the start of the 2020’s but sound wise its business as usual.
For the uninitiated Ektomorf have been described as a Hungarian version of Soulfly and that along with a healthy dose of post Roots Sepultura is a good enough starting point. 10 tracks are belted out in just over half an hour here and the template is rigidly enforced. Opener ‘I’m Your Last Hope (The Noose Around Your Neck)’ is full of chunky riffs and angry vocals, complete with plenty of swearing. It has a bit of Machine Head about it along with the aforementioned and stomps up a storm that would make them a perfect band for a circle pit at a US Festival like Ozzfest. Zoltàn compliments his roars with a fair bit of clean harmonies and his vocalisations hit the spot. Sure they are full of angst but largely work and the next burgeoning stomp along passage is never far away. ‘Die’ speaks for itself, “you fuckeeeeeer” (sorry got caught in the moment). The hammering drums and merciless no frills antagonism is certainly going to get you pumped up and the chest-beating bravado is going to take you back a couple of decades in the process. Slipknot fans are going to be in their element. The clean vocals at start the catchy as hell ‘Never be The Same Again’ remind a fair bit of Misery Loves Company and by now even whilst appreciating things you are going to be feeling that this is at heart a belligerent form of that dreaded nu-metal that you probably wouldn’t admit to listening to in this day and age.
What ya gonna do though? Bang your head, play air whammy bar along ‘I Don’t belong To You,’ stamp your boots, curse and generally act like an arrogant, snotty teenager again! Go on, it’s actually good for you and this is up with the likes of Devil Driver, Static X and all those others at the peak of their careers. Damn these songs are catchy as hell and just keep me thinking of the best bits of the group’s peers. Oddly enough the clean vocals and chorus of ‘Fade Away’ remind of Therapy? Unlike the song title, Fading Away is the last thing it’s going to do once it gets in your head.
I could carry on with the other tracks but I’m not going to add anything different with them or the other five or so previous reviews of the band on the site. Ektomorf are still doing it like they always intended and this for me was actually a welcome and enjoyable nostalgia trip to a time when now old bones were a little suppler and energetic. I can’t exactly get carried away and give it a higher score but then again I can’t exactly dislike it either. Is what it is!
(7/10 Pete Woods)
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