Eternal Elysium – Within The Triad

1. Agent Of Doom
2. Sunset Puff
3. Shadowed Flower
4. Cashed
5. DPS
6. Gravity Bound Conduits For Astral Transmission
7. Space Inn
8. The Agent Returns To Omega Vortex
9. Blues For Third Stone
10. Setsuri
11. The Sunpower (Bonus Track)
12. Absent Pain (Bonus Track)
“Japanese band has been active for almost twenty years and in that period released five cd’s and a number of ep’s and vinyl only releases. The band, with singer-guitar player Yukito Okazaki as only constant factor, cannot be called overly productive and perhaps that is why is not the first name to pop up when you ask for Japanese heavy (psychedelic) rock bands. Sure, Boris, Church Of Misery and in the past Loudness and Sigh are named, that is it. But why?”
” makes (but not too often) very decent records that contain a mix of stoner, bluesrock, doom, heavy psych and alternative punk, boiled down to a heady yet tasteful brew. Compared to the mentioned bands is not nearly as bizarre or extreme, but the question needs to be asked if everything coming from Japan should be that way. Indeed, that is not necessary and Okazaki, accompanied by drummer Antonio Ishikawa and American born bass player Tana Haugo show on their latest effort “” that it should not always be seventy minutes drones or ranting about serial killers. The fact that there is none of that is quite refreshing. “” took some time to get here. It has been released in 2009 in Japan, and only now found its way into the western record bins. The vinyl version has been upgraded with three recently recorded bonustracks. The review-cd has none of these extras, unfortunately.”
“What is there to hear on “”? At first hearing rather conventionally sounding boogiemetal that could be placed somewhere on the tangent connecting Black Sabbath with Ministry. Its timbre is more like the former, its relentless groove more fitting with the latter. It could be called kraut rock dynamics, for what it’s worth. It results in happily raging tracks such as “DPS” and “Sunset Puff”. On “DPS” bass player Haugo provides nice backing vocals in her rather low alto voice. “Shadowed Flower”, a slackish blues boogie track is remarkable in the sense that it is an old track that was already on the 10 inch with the same title three years ago. It remains a fine track with good old fashioned wah-wah soloing. But there is introspection as well on this diverse cd. “Gravity Bound Conduits For Astral Transmission” (what’s in a name?) and “Setsuri” are quiet percussion-less songs that causes this quite exciting cd reaching its end in a very restrained manner.”
Lords Of Metal, Jan-Simon
2LP album (Black)
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