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Sonicfrontiers.net
With each year that passes and each new band that marches in under the banner of atmospheric doom-sludge-post-metal comes and goes, the excitement and flare of metal’s artistic side seems to have gotten a bit stale. Fortunately, Britain’s Fall of Efrafa are here to prove that their special breed of hardcore “crust-punk” can be just as epic and creative without succumbing to ambient pseudo-doom shenanigans. Keep your labels at home—this isn’t post-rock, post-metal, post-hardcore, or even progressive metal. It is a grandiose tale of mankind’s most pitiful disease, told through tormenting sounds of raw intensity and aggression.
Elil is the second installment of a trilogy called “The Warren of Snares,” which is highly influenced by the novel Watership Down by Richard Adams. Accordingly the album’s lyrical content deals mostly with the rejection of religion (specifically Christianity) and all of its destructive forces. Structurally, the most striking feature of the album is the length of its songs—three tracks summing up to an over 60-minute album—incredibly long for a style which is known by definition for its brevity. Despite the length of the tracks, the band still maintains a relatively clean-cut hardcore style. As a result, there is unfortunately an overabundance of slow build-ups in between the exciting segments that often overstay their welcome. For many, this issue will most likely come down to a matter of taste, but personally I could have done without a 6-minute single-melody intro to the first track.
Shortcomings aside, the band deserves due praise for approaching the ever-popular style of epic song structure without turning into another faceless Neur-Isis clone. In staying true to their hardcore punk roots in Elil, Fall of Efrafa have chosen to join the next generation of extreme music with a style all their own.
Deaf Sparrow Zine
We can’t demand that every band comes up with a unique or innovative sound. It’s simply preposterous. Plus, let’s face it; about 80% of experimentations are not even worth hearing. So we should embrace bands that concentrate in songwriting and shall not always put them down simply because they tread on the blues based rock of AC/DC, the intricate jazz metal guitar patterns of Atheist, the humongous suckiness levels of Kiss, the ties of The Hives or the mustache from that Converge dude. That said, UK’s Fall of Efrafa sound a hell of a lot like Neurosis, except….except nothing. But Elil is awesome all the same. Much like the best material from the San Francisco leaders Fall of Efrafa’s crusty post rock takes its time to get stirred. Unlike Neurosis though, once these young lads get going there ain’t no stopping. Elil is comprised of three cuts; all long, expansive and seemingly themselves comprised by several movements. The first one “Beyond the Veil” goes from dead quiet, to heavy, to faster heavy only to slowly bring down the speed (which is not that fast any way), give way to an acoustic passage that lays flat and works as a breather before the tune gets heavy again. The riffs are simple, two to three notes, open and breathing freely for over twenty minutes.
Elil is the second part (following the first part Owsla) in the band’s The Warren of Snares trilogy. Like all trilogies, there must be concordant ideas flowing here. Elil, for instance, means predator and this record as a whole deals with the evils of predatory religious institutions, ‘Ignorant belief systems that sway the minds of a large proportion of humanity on this planet, blinding us as we pollute and rape the earth’. So you get the idea. Fall of Efrafa, like Neurosis is not out here simply to rock out, but also to wake you up and then inform. But beyond all the concepts and ideas, Elil is solid and simple too. At least musically, more blunt, direct and uncomplicated than the band’s objectives. When second cut “Dominion Theology” kicks in, it’s clear this quintet doesn’t complicate itself; the riff is grand, but because of its own constitution it sticks itself in the brain, the vocals of Alex are growled but legible, easy to understand. Elil was produced by Peter Miles, who has worked with a lot of English bands, but expect to hear more stuff produced by this guy. Elil sounds great, Miles could have gone for a rougher angle, but has instead dished out a very natural sounding record with great acoustics. The package is also gorgeous, a collaborative work of Germany’s Alerta Antifascista, England’s Sound devastation and Milwaukee’s Halo of Flies
Crucial Blast
Out of all of the bands that I've been listening to that combine the grimly beautiful chamber rock of groups like Godspeed You Black Emperor and thunderous, heavy hardcore - and there are a few, including Requiem, Remains Of The Day, and Dimlaia - few have sounded as majectic and epic and catchy all at the same time as Fall Of Efrafa, a UK band that combines gloomy instrumental music often augmented by piano and cello, crushing hardcore of the darkest sort, and descents into bleak, apocalyptic doom, all surrounded by imagery and lyrics that draw from the mythology of Richard Adam's classic novel of rabbit society, Watership Down. Their name, their album titles and lyrics and much of their artwork is all taken from Watership Down, and that conceptual quality by itself sets these guys apart from most of what's going on in hardcore. Their first album Owsla, which is almost out of print, was a powerful piece, but the fusion of epic instrumental rock and melodic crustcore is even more fully realized on Elil, the second in their ongoing Warren Of Snares trilogy. Each song on Elil is a 20+ minute epic, beginning with the very Godspeed-ish first half, where sorrow-filled guitars and patient drumming is met with faintly distorted spoken word samples, and then bursts into a triumphant blast of Tragedy-esque melodic crustcore about 10 minutes in, finally ending in a mighty droning dirge metal coda. "Dominion Theology" again starts with a quiet post-rock intro, but that's quickly overtaken by a crushing melodic metal dirge, think Mouth Of The Architect or Neurosis, super epic and majestic, erupting into faster hardcore parts that are so melodic that the hooks are actually pretty "poppy" despite the grim atmosphere in the song, and then settling back into extended instrumental rock, a grooving bassline and heavy drums paired with soaring guitar leads. The spoken word samples apppear again in the opening to the last track "For El Ahrairah To Cry" over softyl strummed acoustic guitars, but are quickly swallowed up by monstrous doom metal. All three songs follow a similiar pattern of alternating passages of folky, Godspeed style post-rock with hard charging heavy crust a la Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone, and slower, doomier heaviness, and the album is pretty much laid out to be listened to as a single work. It's one of the most epic "crust" albums I've ever heard, and I've been coming back to it over and over this past week, in spite of how overwhelming and huge it sounds. The disc comes in a thick, 6-panel gatefold jacket printed on recycled stock, which houses the disc and an 11x17 poster. Highly recommended. |
