Ephel Duath - Through My Dog´s Eyes

label: Earache, 2009
contact: www.ephelduath.net
genre: experimental rock/post-metal/jazz
rating: 9

Anyone who watches a bit more closely what is happening around must have noticed that in the short career of Ephel Duath we have met with lots of twists and turns: ties, simple black and white stylization, moustaches, old men behind drums, pretending to be painters, pretending to be suffering to get the necessary knowledge, but to look at the world through dog´s eyes? Well, and why not?

If I omit the beginning of their discograpghy (Opera and Phormulla) and remixes of Pain necessary to know, Through my dog´s eyes is already the third variation of the crazy Italian on how to become a jazz player from a true black metalhead. And to tell it straight away, metalhead (rocker) he will stay till the end of his life, if we don´t look at how exactly do Ephel Duath profile themselves during their last three albums. But to deny the fact that he has become a jazzman I can´t as well. David is without any doubts a musical genius but also probably a bit of a freak. But to the point….

E still remains connected to metal roots by the strength and energy of the present material, although rhythmically and structurally broken, twisted, re-twisted and then shook around hardly. This might be probably also due to the topic of the album, the doggies on a leash with their owner behind themselves don´t see everything as clearly as a harum-scarum, wildly running stray dog, from this comes the jazzy freedom with which the material is presented to the audience, it´s general expressionism. To the avant-garde side of the specter it is pushed by the work with constructions of the songs and the sound. The fact is that the metal thing as you know it won´t happen here, even though the album is pretty heavy and full of riffs (in the new era of the band the heaviest) and for some maybe even too straightforward; I welcome tracks as Nina or Guardian. However, I don´t see it this way and I call it complexity. Definitely I don´t see the new album as something breaking the qualitatively increasing trend in their discography, it won´t get los for sure, it is a bit more modest with experimentation (it won´t surprise so much), but its holding together better, it has a more common atmosphere, I can feel the interconnectedness of the whole material, when David the fashion designer used one main thread to sew the main corpus and only after used different threads to add the final touches. TMDE is definitely not any turning point in the ED discography, but it has its own firm place inside it and it fits well, as it is still above any genre classification, it is still freaky enough, don´t know if exactly avant-garde, but still it cannot be precisely say what we are talking about here, as metal, rock or jazz it is not. And so I threw the new disc somewhere into the category of earthy, electrifying experimental rock balancing on the verge of various alternative genres, even country at times.

The record sounds pretty often like a jam of southern musicians on heroin (similar to Virus) in some hidden Nashville bar full of cigarette smoke (eyes burn), snooker games (the effort to look normal) and drunk locals (lack of coordination) drooling while looking at the half naked ladies (it is still exciting), but gradually as you get more interested into the music you realize that actually no one is jamming here, the structures are well thought out and arranged. The energy to give you the necessary thrills is not the most important thing here but anyways the music goes around quickly and you are not bored, the important thing here is the feeling and flair for expressing tones, thoughts. The grunge designed guitars meet unconventional guitar picks, rolling slides (that’s where the country feeling comes in), strictly set jazz improvisation ended by naughty sampled aftertastes. David has been holding his specific hand writing since the Painter´s, without any doubt you will recognize it immediately in the beginning what band is playing. The album has a clear analog sound, especially the drums done by Marco Minneman (Necrophagist, Freaky Fukin Weirdoz, Paul Gilbert, H-Blockx, Garry Willis, The Kelly Family, Illogicist ). I would really like to know who will play on the next record, Vinni Colaiuta? I should also mention the absence of Fabio Fecchi and his bass, the album doesn´t sound empty however as vocals and guitars take even more arrangements. Vocals. I really have to say that this time they really do an essential piece of work. Luciano Lorusso George really came close to his limits this time and throws around swarms of vocal styles, switches between shouting, roaring, narration, speech, sometimes even coming close to rap, vocal positions non-positions, in short really takes a lot on his back on this album. The lyrics must be interesting as well – for example just the beginning of Gift: “I have a present for you, It’s a cat! Do you like it? As the cat decomposes, do you like it?”

TMDE is a coherent, something above half an hour long segment of selected freely floating thoughts following one another and mixed together into various interrelated structures. In other words, if you forget for a while all the complicated arrangements, guitar pickings slow downs, certain unwillingness to follow rules, the new disc of Ephel Duath actually brings grunge goes bankrupt attitude and you will never be sure whether you yourself aren´t high still or whether it was all just a dream. And indeed that it was just a dream, just a few doggie thoughts about weather in which you wouldn´t kick a doggie out in the cold passed through your mind.

EPHEL DUATH: Davide Tiso – guitar, Luciano Lorusso George – vox (already ex, now Guillermo Gonzalez – vox), Marco Minnemann – drums (live - Andrea Rabuini or Sergio Ponti - Illogicist)

9 / 32:18

through my doggie´s eyes: Gift, Promenade, Breed, Silent Door, Bella Morte, Nina, Guardian, Spider Shaped Leaves, Bark Loud

bizzaro

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