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ELAN is a duo hailing from Norwich in the UK who conjure up their own brand of chaotic, doomy sludge noise. Having originally recorded a two-track demo in 2016, the band went on a prolonged hiatus before reconvening to record their sonic assault of a debut album ELAN vs. ELAN which is about to be released via APF Records, a label that has become synonymous with the UK underground metal scene in recent years. The band is the brainchild of Shane Miller (vocals, guitars, bass) and Joe Woodbury (drums, vocals), although the album is written, performed and recorded by their masked alter-egos Billie and Dianne, two mysterious characters behind a pair of eerie rabbit masks inspired by the bewildering David Lynch short film Rabbits from 2002, adding another layer of cinematic influence to the band’s TV and film-driven concept.
The Lynch-ian influences do not end there though, as each of the eight tracks on ELAN vs. ELAN is directly inspired by cult films and TV shows, many created by Lynch himself. It opens with the loose, groove-laden, doomy jam of Two Angry Men which is layered with a sound clip from 1957 crime thriller classic ‘Twelve Angry Men’. The menace hinted at on this first track is amped up for its successor Behind This Place, a slow, chugging sludge beast reminiscent of NEUROSIS or CONAN, with lyrics lifted directly from the script of Lynch’s trippy and disturbing masterpiece ‘Mulholland Drive’. Whilst the crushing riffs and pounding drums stand up to be counted the second the song starts, it also shows real ambition in terms of the band’s songwriting, as there is no obvious verse/chorus structure here, the band instead ploughing on through new passages as the song progresses, a motif that continues throughout the first half of the album.
Perhaps the most Lynchian of moments though is saved for fourth track and album highlight Peaks, which unsurprisingly is directly inspired by the TV series ‘Twin Peaks’ and is as unsettling as its source material. Bellowed guttural vocals battle against twisting, chaotic, jagged riffs and furiously battered toms, caustic basslines rumbling away beneath it all. This is swiftly followed by the album’s heaviest track To Kill A Gull, a chaotic and violent clash of hardcore and blast-beats with both sets of vocals straining against each other for supremacy whilst tipping a hat to Robert Eggers’ nightmarish movie ‘The Lighthouse’.
Sludge by its very nature is a chaotic genre, taking in hardcore, death metal, noise and doom influences and all of those are explored thoroughly throughout Elan vs. Elan and nowhere is this more expertly highlighted than on the crushing seventh track Less Stable Readers, where Elan brings to mind the work of fellow APF sludge monsters SWAMP COFFIN. Despite its weight though, the material on offer here never veers into unremitting bleakness. There is a real punk energy constantly pushing through the speakers, whether in the unhinged vocal deliveries or the loose but refreshing approach to structure.
The album ends on a doomier note, with the epic Advocate Cannibalism which is six and a half minutes of hypnotic, disturbing metal, angular guitars punctuating the double bass rattles in the (sort of) verses. The final three minutes are an exercise in devastating doom metal, the bass and drums slowly grinding away as the guitars turn into a painful squeal of feedback, before it all crashes back in one last time to provide an appropriately brutal full-stop to everything that has come before. As with a lot of APF’s output, this isn’t exactly easy listening. But for fans of brutally heavy, doom-tinged sludge it’s another absolute must of a record.
Rating: 8/10
Elan Vs Elan is out now via APF Records.
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The post ALBUM REVIEW: Elan Vs. Elan – Elan appeared first on Distorted Sound Magazine.
