Egypt, Endless Flight: Follow the White Light (Plus Full Album Stream)
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on December 11th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
[Click play above to stream Egypt’s Endless Flight in full. Digital out Dec. 14, CD soon after, LP in 2016 on Doomentia Records.]
It is not long into Endless Flight before Egypt let the listener know what’s up. 10 seconds, maybe? In any case, it’s about a minute before they’re into the first verse of the opener and longest track (immediate points), “Endless Flight,” and in very short order the North Dakotan trio affirm the righteousness of their rolling, bluesy grooves, the hairiness of their tonality and the thickness of their approach overall, hearkening to the glory days of Man’s Ruin Records‘ stoner-is-as-stoner-does idolatry without sounding rehashed or forced in any way. At six tracks/35 minutes, Endless Flight is in fact a pretty short sojourn, but it’s intended to receive a companion piece sometime in 2016, the songs from which as I understand it will at least largely be fruit of the same writing sessions.
All the better. What the three-piece of bassist/vocalist Aaron Esterby, guitarist Neal Stein and drummer Chad Heille present with their second full-length and the follow-up to 2013’s awaited debut LP, Become the Sun (review here), and that same year’s Cyclopean Riffs split with Texas’ Wo Fat (review here) — they also reissued their debut EP/demo (review here) around then as well — is complete and resonant control of their craft, in terms both of aesthetic and writing, their approach overall. Songs vary in tempo, mood and level of aggression/disaffection, but Endless Flight in its entirety is united by a consuming warmth of tone and it serves as a potent reminder that sometimes formulas that seem simple on their surface work best of all. Egypt‘s brand of heavy is a clarion to the converted: Come on out and get your nod working. It is not worth trying to resist.
The laid back roll that the title-track unfurls, especially as the album’s opening statement, is glorious. Its central, defining riff is a massive groove presented without delving into needless tonal largesse — Stein and Esterby keeping it classic and classy as the record gets going with Heille as the force making it move. “Endless Flight” has a standout hook, and finds its effectiveness rooted in hypnotic repetition thereof — it’s an easy song to get lost in, and that’s precisely the idea. In its second half, as they approach the sixth minute, Egypt pull the plug on the verse/chorus tradeoffs and dive into an extended bridge, quiet at first, then topped by Esterby‘s guttural shouts as a precursor to a solo from Stein. They make their way back to the chorus to finish, but true to the theme of travel, motion, etc., it’s getting there that’s the fun part.
Among Endless Flight‘s other tracks, none of them are shooting for the same kind of molten groove, and it’s much to the album’s benefit that instead of closing, the title-track opens, because by the time “The Tomb” comes around and starts a current of swing that continues through centerpiece “Tres Madres” (early version streamed here) and into “Black Words,” the band has, in essence, put the listener right where they want them. It is easy to pick up from the feedback finish of “Endless Flight” into the uptempo bassline that starts “The Tomb,” and as the drums and fuzz guitar kick in overtop, Egypt smooth the way into the next stage of Endless Flight, which is more aggressive vocally — Esterby touched on a cleaner approach on the prior track, but sticks to the more growling feel thereafter — and keeps more to its sans-frill structures, though for what it’s worth, “The Tomb” still finds room in its six minutes for a dreamy loose-feeling-but-tightly-executed solo before ending side A with a final chorus and couple measures of full riff density.
Launching side B and also the centerpiece of the CD/digital version, “Tres Madres” is a justifiable focal point. It’s the point at which Egypt boogie hardest — Heille puts more swing into a hi-hat than many drummers do to an entire kit — and perhaps at the same time the most purely Iommic inclusion on the record, Esterby‘s verse growls filling stops in the riff before wah overdose leads to more starts, stops, fills, swirl, bass and groove. As “Black Words” soon affirms, just because Egypt doesn’t always set opposing elements off each other doesn’t mean they can’t do it when they don’t want to. The bass holds down the for as guitar and drums both go into freakout mode in “Tres Madres”‘ second half, the song departing further from prior modus by not going all the way back to the chorus, instead hitting into the verse stop twice before the drums count in “Black Words.” While at 7:47 it’s the longest cut on Endless Flight apart from the title-track, the two ultimately have little in common, “Black Words” being more varied in its purpose, waiting almost three minutes before starting its first verse and (intentionally) losing itself not once but twice in shuffling mayhem, solo sections broken up broken up by some considerably slower riffing.
This back and forth of pacing is fluid, and to the band’s credit there’s never any doubt that “Black Words” is going to come flying apart in either of those solos, dizzying though they are. By this time, Egypt have pushed “far out” about as far as it can go and not have Endless Flight be a completely different kind of album, so they cap with “Shaman’s March” instead, a five-and-a-half-minute crawler that revolves largely around one riff, almost mirroring “Endless Flight” itself, but oppositional in its focus, not nearly as subdued of spirit. With Heille on his crash and Stein belting out spacious riffing while Esterby spits the lyrics on a per-syllable basis and fills out the low end, Egypt make their way gradually to the conclusion of Endless Flight, the last minute-plus of “Shaman’s March” dedicated to a long fade that seems to be returning the listener to the reality they left half an hour prior. All of this tone, all of this burl, finds its meaning in the overarching flow that Endless Flight enacts from its very first minutes to its ending, and though each song offers standout moments either in the performances of Esterby, Stein or Heille or in all three locked in together, it’s the entirety of the album itself that’s really the highlight. Their best work to-date, hands down, and if it’s the first of a two-parter in whatever fashion, that next one is going to be something to anticipate.
