As well as sporting a nicely cocky name, new signings to Season of Mist, Elitist, are boundary crossers, I guess. Roots proudly proclaimed as hardcore punk but mutated by their influences. Sludge aplenty here, older school death metal yes and some frighteningly straight forward sounding black metal too makes it sound like a bit of a musical magpie on paper. So what about when faced with the actual music? Do we get a blend or a collage with bits stuck on?
This Portland quartet begin knee deep in thick black sludge. Opening with 'Burning The Unspoken Gospels', I'm struck immediately by how little 'core there is here. This is almost grindcore vocals tied to a slow death metal hammering; pissed off and dragging the body across the floor through a layer of sludge for five minutes. It sounds like an intro if I'm honest, the riff seeming to herald something that never entirely comes but, for all that, it kind of works by its relentless cranking up of the pressure.
So 'Cult Malevolence' is a bit of a pressure valve for me. It begins with a more metalcore thrash before descending smoothly into a death/doom rasp with vocalist Joshua Green spitting and rasping his rage across it. Yes, you can feel the Morbid Angel in its bones and without a lyric sheet and only the PR and titles to go by I guess the guys really hate organised religion but for all the commitment it feels a little... hmm. Dunno. Something just isn't quite there. Not quite on this song.
'Ivory Shavings of Tools Unknown' though arrives on a great, nasty little bass line before striding back into the death metal sludge morass. It has a bile and disgust reminiscent of Eyehategod and a baleful glare all its own. It also swims into a tortured guitar storm that shows that Elitist aren't too afraid to step out of the groove and it leaves a great size twelve impression on me. 'Black Wool' follows up with some blasting old style death metal and slowly it is all beginning to sound pretty darned good and gnarly.
Sometimes, as on 'Slowly Fucked And Force Fed', the tempo slows to a gloriously painful death/doom crawl before hitting the punk accelerator and, with bulging muscle riffs, drags the crust covered machine with it. 'Toothless And Yawning' brings the blackened edge to the fore of a bit of punked up metal and 'Bound and Bent' is a short bit of thundering death thrash. All good, tight and dirty and exciting to a point.
It is an exciting, confident and determined performance. The only problem I seem to be having, though, is the feeling of restraint. Despite a production that avoids sterile tech to keep the dirt under the fingernails and the seriously raging voice, only in short bursts do I get the feeling that the beast might truly rip out its shackles. The seriously blackened and stand-out closing track 'Tower Of Meth' does it in moments but the cage too often feels too solid to make me worry that things are going to get really dangerous. Think of those times when Anaal Nathrakh rage so hard coherence goes out of the window or the Georgian Skull suddenly ripping out of the groove they'd just painstakingly built. Still, it is early days and this is a tremendous start.
I have to admit I am a bit of a tourist in the world where Elitist have their roots; an enthusiastic one, but a tourist nevertheless. Hardcore is a muscular world to elbow your way into for some of us even when it is mixed up with so much metal as Elitist have on show here that it almost pummels it to dust. Well, this is a very good, bright debut, no doubt. It has hammers and those all important hooks aplenty, pent up anger and a fixed gaze that could freeze the reproductive hopes of a brass monkey and you feel in your gut that these guys tear off faces live. Next time I just want that feeling to be captured better in the studio because I'm certain they have it in them.
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Gizmo
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