Album Review: Ealdor Bealu, Graves of the Silent Plain
The continued evolution of Boise four-piece Ealdor Bealu brings their fourth album, Graves of the Silent Plain, after four years that makes for the longest between-records stretch of their tenure thus far. And where 2022’s Psychic Forms (review here) took the prior landscape-psych spaciousness and progressive intent of their first two full-lengths, 2017’s Dark Water at the Foot of the Mountain (review here) and 2019’s Spirit of the Lonely Places (review here), and pushed them into new and lush aural reaches, the five songs and 42 minutes of Graves of the Silent Plain mark a turn in the intent behind the craft.
Sure, a cut like centerpiece “Erosion” (6:06) still has layers of interwoven acoustic guitar behind bassist Rylie Collingwood‘s singing-out, a folkish or at very least sun-coated atmosphere taking its time to develop the melody before heavier tones arrive in the second half, swirling leads and warm bass and all for a still-controlled, fluid crescendo, by the time they get there, the shift in purpose is already long since established. It begins, suitably enough, in opener “Ponderay” (8:10), which sets out on fuzzed riffing from guitarist/vocalist Carson Russell (also Ghorot) and guitarist/backing vocalist Travis Abbott (also Sawtooth Monk, Shadow and Claw) and locks in an immediate groove with new drummer Cameron Elgart — to-date, Ealdor Bealu have never had the same drummer from one album to the next, so yes, Elgart is debuting here — cutting through the compressed sounding guitars before Collingwood starts the verse with a surprising, declaratively black metal rasp.
Not at all the first time Ealdor Bealu have featured harsh vocals in their songs, but it is especially vicious in light of a rawer production style — the band recorded with Andy Agenbroad at The Chop Shop in Boise, who also helmed Spirit of the Lonely Places, and mixed themselves at Hinge Music Studio; the esteemed James Plotkin mastered — and especially the effect of having that be the first impression Graves of the Silent Plain makes informs everything that follows, even if it’s only about a minute later that Russell and Collingwood come together in a cleaner-sung voice to top an instrumental surge.
That early char doesn’t return, and “Ponderay” grows more spacious as it goes, but the impression that initial defiance of expectation leaves is never lost. It feels like it’s in the band’s collective back pocket all the while and it serves to make the listening experience of the whole album feel less predictable. Doing so invariably suits Ealdor Bealu, for whom dynamic has always been central and whose songs continue to flow as thoughtful and expressive in kind. Abbott takes the lead vocal in “Abandoned to Decay” (9:36) with backing melodies from Collingwood and a flash of rasp from Abbott along with a memorable instrumental push starting right around the five-minute mark with a forward solo, a receding into comedown and a satisfying roll of an ending leading into the shimmering guitar at the outset of “Erosion.” Ealdor Bealu are no strangers to creating a full-length flow, songs that seem to interact with each other to give an overarching impression, but I can’t remember that sounding so purposeful as it does on Graves of the Silent Plain.
Is that maturity? It might be, and that’s not unreasonable nine years after their debut, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still trying new things, as “Ponderay” demonstrates almost immediately upon pressing play. As “Erosion” is brought down from its apex to a few seconds of silence ahead of “Gold Mountain” (10:48), I’m not sure where the vinyl side-split actually is, but the mellow drums and acoustic/electric unfolding of “Gold Mountain” is the beginning of side B, the patience allows the listener to immerse deeper.
It’s still less about effects and reverby echoing canyons than their sound has been in the past — we’re feet-on-the-ground here, if that makes any sense thinking of their sound — but it would be difficult to think of “Gold Mountain” as anything other than expansive even if the guitars crunch more than they sprawl as they move back and forth between fuller riffing and leaving space open in the verse behind Abbott and Collingwood. A long bridge brings them to a noodlier heavy psych progression with Collingwood in the lead and guitar doing the backing vocals (yes that’s what I mean to say) before the actual solo takes hold near the finish, a last-minute slowdown and crashout feeling well earned by the breadth harnessed before it with a considered balance in the guitars and a light-touch fade that underscores the intent to convey a sense of performance as they’ve done across the span to that point.
And maybe that’s where some of the more barebones intent comes from — wanting to make a record that sounds like they do live. Fair enough. The closer “Buried at Boothill” (7:36) adds nuance to the guitar line behind Collingwood‘s soprano reach; a figure more than a riff, which comes with the chorus before a break in the midsection turns them toward heavier-toned push. Thus do the monsters return. I think it’s Collingwood and Abbott, but I could be wrong. Either way, the harsher vocals coming back feels like a purposeful bookend to “Ponderay,” and placed for effect, but the swirl isn’t gone from “Buried at Boothill” either, and that carries the finale back to its hook before another mini-screamout caps.
The message, of course, is one of dynamic, of the chemistry between Collingwood, Abbott and Russell (not to leave Elgart out, but I’m talking about something that’s been built over their albums to-date), and of the still increasing range of their songwrting. Again, they underscore the notion of Graves of the Silent Plain as a single work with “Buried at Boothill,” and more than they’re in conversation with any particular influence or point of inspiration, they’re in conversation with themselves, reveling in the process of creation and, while a bit heady as always, never so cerebral as to detract from the emotional resonance of the songs, the melodies, the variable weight in the material, and so on. It’s a very particular kind of gorgeousness, and Ealdor Bealu own it here more than they ever have to-date.
