Album Review: Elder, Omens
There has yet to be an Elder release that did not move forward from the one before it. They have never repeated themselves, and even if 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World (review here) seemed to be in direct conversation with its predecessor, the landmark 2015 outing, Lore (review here), it found ways to expand their sound by incorporating the work of then-new keyboardist/guitarist Mike Risberg, opening up to fluid sections of kraut-inspired improvisational jamming that came to fruition more on 2019’s instrumental The Gold & Silver Sessions EP (discussed here). The band’s fifth album, Omens — which is issued through Armageddon Shop in the US and Stickman Records in Europe and might as well be taking its title from what an entire league of other groups’ debuts will sound like four years from now — is no exception to the rule. It is, instead, a leap with eyes and both feet forward into new echelons of lush melody and progressive rock.
While their foundation may have been in the lumbering riffery of their 2008 self-titled (discussed here), a penchant for complexity began to take hold in 2011’s Dead Roots Stirring (review here) and 2012’s Spires Burn/Release (discussed here), but even that feels primitive in hindsight in comparison to what they bring to light across the five tracks and 55 minutes of Omens. Risberg‘s work is central to that, and he’s joined on keys throughout by founding guitarist/vocalist Nick DiSalvo — whose linear style of composition has remained an essential facet to Elder‘s approach even as so much else has changed — as well as guest spots on mellotron and Fender Rhodes by Fabio Cuomo, who makes an impression with the latter early in the near-11-minute rollout of the opening title-track. It is a shift in breadth of influence as much as one of sonic priorities, but Omens neither forgets where it came from nor gives up its sense of heft. Jack Donovan‘s bass arguably carries more responsibility than ever before for serving as the anchor of the rhythm section, since even as Elder have so clearly coalesced with Risberg as “the new guy,” they here introduce drummer Georg Edert (also of Germany’s Gaffa Ghandi) to the fold in place of Matt Couto.
As fluid as the results are throughout Omens, that is a major change. Couto‘s personality as a drummer is rare and distinct, and he’s not the kind of player one can simply replace. Much to their credit, Elder don’t try. Rather, Edert establishes quickly through “Omens” and “In Procession” his own style of play, feeding off the unfolding dramas of melody in the keys and DiSalvo‘s sweeping guitar progressions. A straightforward backbeat grounds the winding verse of “In Procession” even as Elder move into new textures and a more contoured sound than they’ve ever had before, some midsection crash satisfying those seeking a payoff along the way — indeed, the title-track’s opening riff likewise serves as something of an embrace of heavier impulses; give me a bit, we’ll get there — ahead of a keyboard solo and return of the vocals and finishing section, and Edert‘s play not only keeps up with these characteristically head-spinning, sometimes-maddening shifts from part to part, but enhances them. He emerges as a drummer of class and intention, able to bring a jazzy sensibility when called upon to do so or to rock out as need be. Though he’s inevitably the new “new guy,” this material is stronger for what he brings to it.
That’s true as well in “Halcyon,” the designation of which as the centerpiece would not seem to be happenstance. The longest cut at 12:48, it summarizes much of the growth that’s to be heard throughout Omens, opening with a gloriously languid unfurling of electronic and natural rhythm and multi-layered melodic coasting. There is a subtle build happening, with tension mounting in the guitar that moves forward gradually, but there’s a stop in the drums before the full-volume surge happens at 4:24 (also, by coincidence, the release day), and Elder successfully bring together the various sides of their continually deepening sonic persona — the weighted tonality of their earliest work, the push into conscious craft, too heady to be psychedelic but too aerial to be called anything but otherworldly. It is time to start thinking of DiSalvo among composers like Opeth‘s Mikael Åkerfeldt, not just because of an affinity for prog, but in terms of the ability to take seemingly disparate styles and create something new and individual from them. Elder‘s sound, despite an increasing amount of bands working in their wake, is their own, and there is no compromise to be found across Omens.
“Halcyon” is a triumph of their method, its finishing balance of patience and push all the more emblematic of their well-earned maturity as a unit, and yet it hardly stops before the returning mellotron in “Embers” signals the next movement of the record is underway, with chunky start and stops and a heavier roll that gives ground about halfway through to an instrumental build that could almost be in answer to “Halcyon,” culminating in wah sweep and farewell spiraling noise. This, ahead of the wistful standalone guitar that begins closer “One Light Retreating” and is soon joined by the full crux of tonal presence, DiSalvo‘s voice in the initial lines bringing to mind an almost post-hardcore/emo mindset in the verse before that heavier part returns in a back and forth that finds the one building off the next. As Elder has progressed relentlessly, so too has DiSalvo as a singer and somewhat reluctant frontman, but the feeling conveyed in “One Light Retreating” is at a level that wouldn’t have been possible even five years ago. Unsurprisingly, “One Light Retreating” does not blow itself out at the finish, but indeed retreats, with a poised instrumental flow that once again underscores not just the emotionality on display — I haven’t had the benefit of a lyric sheet, so I’m just going by what I hear — but a genuine encapsulation of the melodic and rhythmic grace they’ve been displaying all along.
Elder are a refinement process. They are driven by this need to move forward, and each of their albums becomes a summary of what they’ve learned since the last. Omens, whatever its title might directly be referencing, inevitably looks ahead. An omen does not occur in the past — lore does. Omens is Elder signaling the beginning of their next stage as a band, as all their work has been, and as ever, it finds them not thinking about where they’ve been, but where they might still go creatively, and these songs are made to be lived with. They will reveal their nuances to listeners not over a period of weeks or months, but years. This is part of what makes Elder such a special, singular band, and part of what has led their work to resonate on as great a scale as it has. Whatever they might do next, don’t expect it to sound just like this, but if Omens is itself a portent of things to come, heavy music will be all the more fortunate to have Elder as statesmen.
(lyrics are on the bandcamp JJ)
Only had one run through this with some distraction, but first impression is very favourable. I didn’t get on with Reflections… that well, somehow it was a tiring album and I would find myself overwhelmed, but not in an enjoyable way. This is much less overbearing in its sound, and the song progressions draw me along as they are surely meant to do, rather than batter my brains as I found with the last album.
It is a different beast, much more of the Gold and Silver mellowness as anticipated. I had thought that I might not enjoy that, that they were losing their edge somehow, but Omens is all right by me!
A brilliant review of a truly special album, which itself is nothing less than a sonic tour de force through the heavens and the stars beyond. Absurdly good, and utterly spellbinding.
Yes, this is one of the best albums I have ever heard. But I also think this is the best review you have ever written, and I’ve read a lot of your stuff over the years J.J. I didn’t think it was possible to convey the atmosphere of Elder with the written word. You pulled it off…
That is incredibly kind of you to say. Thank you, Scott.