(Today we help announce, and premiere a video playthrough, of a new EP by the Swiss metal band Stortregn, preceded by DGR‘s review of this very interesting and hair-raising new work on the eve of its release.)
Given the length of Stortregn‘s career it is impressive that they’ve been able to keep to such a consistent clip. Even while slowly metamorphosizing into a different genre from where they started, Stortregn have been a on a strong two-to-three-year cycle of quality releases. They even managed to land one well enough with 2023’s Finitude that it wound up ranking pretty highly at this here website’s year-end celebrations. If nothing else, we were certainly ready to throw down in defense of the one-two punch of “Xeno Chaos” and “Cold Void” in the early part of the album.
Stortregn specialize in a form of compositional chaos that is tightly controlled but still just off the map enough that they pleasantly surprise. Each song is a musical showpiece on its own without devolving into instrumental demo work, and that they do this at such a high speed for the majority of their last few releases has been stunning. Without ever letting their extremity become milquetoast, Stortregn have put in a valiant effort in the tech-death world.
The group’s upcoming two-song EP One Eternal marks the first recorded appearance of new vocalist Franck De Luca and consists of two songs: the titular “One Eternal” and a mad alchemical take on Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Mr. Crowley“. Franck is stepping into some pretty big shoes given that people familiar with Stortregn have spent a hair under twenty years with the group’s high screamer Romain Negro behind the microphone. A sudden change in voice can be intimidating to some people but Franck has grabbed the baton and taken off at lightspeed with it.
“One Eternal” as a song is a cinematic affair, cleaved neatly into two parts and with plenty of room for Franck to soar over the top and fly right alongside the track’s near-power-metal-esque guitar leads. The near-immediate confirmation that Stortregn are still the frenetic beast they’ve been for their career helps to settle the nerves. “One Eternal” is musically adventurous for them but also has the backing and rhythm segment still firmly in its comfort zone. While attempting to wear out drummer Samuel Jakubec and bassist Manuel Barrios by utter velocity, the long-tenured guitar crew have afforded themselves room to scratch even deeper into tech-death as a whole without sailing headlong into the “whirlpool of notes” territory.
The idea of covering Ozzy Osbourne‘s “Mr. Crowley” as an extra song and turning it into a technical death metal hurricane to ride alongside “One Eternal” is hilarious – but welcome. Stortregn try their damndest to maintain the core of the song such that the main melody and general motions of the song are recognizable, but obviously can’t help themselves when it comes to packing a freight train’s worth of drumming into the song as well. Stortregn proceed to shred their way through the song as well, making the guitar work an endless pyrotechnics show whenever it’s not tumbling downward during the main verse.
Stortregn‘s take on “Mr Crowley” is as if a stage production guy at a play passed out on the control panel and landed on the lights constantly flying all over the place. Yes, there’s a very serious and dramatic reading taking place at ground level but everything surrounding it is both sensory overload and batshit insanity. It’s a fun – if a tad goofball – take on a song that you never would’ve guessed would come out of the Stortregn camp, given their taste for high-velocity shred work.
One Eternal offers a brief but wholly welcome taste of upcoming music from the Stortregn crew. It jumps off the padded walls of its room with enough force that it still manages to leave dents in those walls and moves fast enough to scorch the floor with burn scars. One Eternal is combination comfort zone and experimentation – as EPs tend to be – and the small peek into the future is enough to keep one intrigued. The joining cover song is a fun romp, not insanely integral to the overall Stortregn sound but it is a blast to see them effectively do a mad scientist act via the muppets and completely explode a song all over the building.
The One Eternal EP is a tech-death blast, and that bit of adventuring that Stortregn get up to during the title song is hopefully a taste of something equally expansive for whatever the band eventually coalesce around for the next full album.
Here is Stortregn‘s own comment about this new release:
“This EP marks the arrival of our new vocalist and a new era for the band: one original track that dives into the abyss of the cosmic void, and a cover of Ozzy Osbourne‘s classic ‘Mr. Crowley,’ dragged through the event horizon of Blackened Death. This EP is a bridge between dimensions, a new descent into cosmic chaos. Beware for what is to come!”
One Eternal was recorded at Conatus Studio with Vladimir Cochet. It was also mixed and mastered at Conatus Studio (CH) and features cover art by by Satria Ink. It will be released on June 6th on 10″ vinyl format, and digitally.
ORDER/STREAM:
https://stortregn.bandcamp.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4SuIgDBeOQBz7cI1HfsK31
FOLLOW:
https://linktr.ee/stortregn
https://www.facebook.com/stortregn
https://www.instagram.com/stortregn_official