Recommended for fans of: Celeste, This Gift Is A Curse, LLNN
Call them what you will… Sludge, Post-Metal, “Negative Hardcore”… there’s no question that this band, by any other name, would still sound just as dark and heavy.
That name, by the way, is Erdve, and the band in question hail from the balmy Baltic shores of Lithuania, a country which – despite its relatively small stature on the global metal stage – has also given us the likes of Sisyphean, Aortes, Juodvarnis, Luctus, Awakening Sun, and many more.
And with the recent release of their thrilling third album, Epigrama, last week now seemed like the perfect time to take a deep dive into their discography courtesy of The Synn Report!
2018 – VAITOJIMAS
Kicking off with a massive, back-breaking riff and an equally massive, gut-wrenching howl, the title-track to the band’s debut album instantly lays down the gauntlet, and the formula (humongous, down-tunged guitars, moody, thrumming bass lines, pounding, heavy-hitting percussion, and volley after volley of visceral, venom-spewing vocals), for the rest of the record.
It’s a formula, however, that allows the band to shift their weight a little as needed – and, make no mistake about it, even at this early stage in their career there’s a palpable, punishing weight to their sound – enabling them to lean towards a slightly more introspective and atmosphere-heavy approach on the Amenra-esque “Išnara” (retaining the grinding, gloomy-laden intensity of its predecessor while also expanding the scope and scale of the group’s songwriting to make space for moments of simmering calm amidst the crushing heaviness) or put their foot down even harder with the churning, Hardcore-influenced riffage of “Prievarta”.
This “Dark Hardcore” vibe carries over into the slow burn towards catharsis that is “Apvertkis” (which fans of Catharsis‘s recent comeback might also want to check out), while there’s a nascent experimental/progressive undercurrent to “Pilnatvė” that one can just about hear if they strain their ears to perceive beyond the gruelling, grinding guitars and crashing, clashing drums (especially during the song’s broodingly bombastic finale).
It all comes to a head with the spiky, discordant strains of “Atraja”, whose jagged, jarring edges and sctachy, anxiety-inducing energy have more than a hint of Celeste to them – right down to the menacing, bass-driven grooves that dominate the song’s mid-section – leaving the listener beaten and bruised and (hopefully) hungry for more!
2021 – SAVIGAILA
If you thought that Vaitojimas was a heavy, nasty album – and it was, no doubt – you’re going to be even more pleased by the blast ‘n’ burn, rattle ‘n’ churn assault of “Lavondėmės”, which opens the band’s second album with a sense of lurching, lashing violence that would put the likes of Hexis, This Gift Is A Curse, et al to shame.
The brooding opening bars of “Smala” serve as a subtle mislead, suggesting that the band are going to ease off a little following the oppressive assault of the opener, but it doesn’t take long for this idea to be crushed beneath the weight of the track’s stomping, sludge-ridden riffs and splashy, blood-spattered percussive patterns, while the sinister simmer of “Votis” recalls the haunted darkness of “depressive” Post-Metal pioneers Planks with its emphasis on hypnotic repetition and eerie sonic textures.
There’s a harsher, more Hardcore-influenced – albeit, definitely more influenced by the “Dark Hardcore” style of a bands like Zeroid and Tragedy – edge to “Betonas” which eschews such subtleties, however, in favour of pure, punishing power and abrasive, ear-splitting intensity (just listen to the ways those guitars roil and seethe like bubbling waves of blackened bitumen), while the swirling noise of “Pleura” hints once again at the band’s burgeoning experimental impulses.
The absolutely savage, suffocatingly dense and dark Sludge-core of “Bendrystė” is, if anything, even heavier and nastier than its predecessors – erring even more towards the Abstracter/Rorcal side of things – with the catastophic, slow-motion kerb-stomp of “Sugretinimas” (which even incorporates some subtle, if subtle is a word that can ever be used when referring to this band, industrial elements) doubles-down on this even harder (making the sombre melodic minimalism of “Pragulos” even more effective by comparison).
Seething dissonance, scorching distortion, and twisting, turbulent percussion – interspersed with touches of sullen introspection and topped off with corrosive waves of visceral invective – is what you get with the title-track, which essentially epitomises the sound of the entire record, leaving the meditative, piano-driven “Skilimas” and the monstrous, pounding “Takoskyra” to close the record out with a clever bit of bait-and-switch contrast.
2026 – EPIGRAMA
Building on the sonic success and suffocating excess of the previous two albums, Epigrama is somehow even heavier than either – the absolutely gargantuan guitars have more than a shade of LLNN, Leeched, or even Meshuggah to them this time around – with the staccato, stop-start sturm und drang of the opening title-track quickly introducing you to this even more blistering and bludgeoning version of the band (replete with an even more unsettling, pseudo-industrial undercurrent).
The crushing crawl of “Nyra” provides a prime showcase for the deep, down-tuned bass-lines and subtle, melancholy melodies with which the band continue to decorate their increasingly intense, disgustingly dense, sound – all booming, bone-jarring grooves and creeping, claustrophobic atmospherics which remind you that “low and slow” is often the way to go if you really want to get heavy – while the chunky, chugging chatter of “Skepsis” serves as a reminder that Erdve share more than a fair bit in common with the ultra-nihilistic, down-tuned devastation of bands like END and The Acacia Strain at their darkest and sludgiest too.
The slinky percussive patterns and moody melodic undertones of “Ydos” in turn remind you that, for all their focus on propulsive, post-apocalyptic, savagery, Erdve are capable of surprising subtlety (though the end of the song abandons this in favour of pure, unadulterated power), after which the similarly mercurial, yet equally massive, strains of “Trukmė” return to the more Celeste-esque Black/Sludge hybrid sound of their earlier years (albeit somehow even harsher, heavier, and more unconventional – especially towards the end – than ever).
“Svertas” showcases an even darker, borderline doomier, approach that reaffirms those LLNN, Acacia Strain, etc, comparisons, making excellent use of both eerie negative space and gut-wrenching, bowel-quaking Sludge-core breakdowns (making this arguably one of the heaviest songs of the band’s career, though that’s a very high, or low, bar), after which “Raukšlės” provides some necessary contrast with its more up-tempo grooves and simmering, shimmering atmospheric aurora.
Concluding with the colossal, Meshuggah-gone-Sludge sounds of “Skleistis” (another song which makes great use of the band’s ability to let things breathe and brood before dropping into a lurching, lung-collapsing assault) Epigrama should, finally, put the band over the top – and on all the right lips – where they belong!