My Review
E-L-R * Vexier
"The heavier the burden, the closer our life is to the earth, the more real and authentic it is. On the contrary, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to become lighter than air, to take flight upwards, to distance himself from the earth, from being earthly, to become only half-real and his movements to be as free as they are meaningless. What should we choose then? Heaviness or lightness?"
(Milan Kundera)
Something, in listening to music, seems destined for suffering, for digestion that finds its occlusion, for the fatigue of perceptions that when coupled with desire create great confusion.The sense of freedom among the notes is often the territory of deception, futility and a subsequent severe embarrassment. All this eventually combines with the heaviness of these instants.
These are moments that are remembered, we are given no choice, with taste finally dying, so dangerous and damaging, if you think about it. All that remains is for us to be extreme curiosities, perennial nomads, frenzied travellers, with places always to be found.
Bern, the federal city, the elegant and ever-active woman, that lives and unleashes its energies on an enchanting plateau, is also the beach of the Alps, where the E-L-Rs follow their mad propensity to create boulders of sound like drooling sorcerers.
Yes, really, believe me, their songs are metamorphic rocks with stunned, curving glaciers inside, flying over time and our gazes, dripping with the sweat of fear that is born and dies in these terrifying and delightful forty-six minutes. A set of passages amidst the mountains of our vibrations, with their Doommetal effectively hypnotic and heavy, to then seek and find a bit of lightness when their hands turn on the less rough side, that Doomgaze always more willing to show its possibilities of development. Without forgetting the Postrock with battling feathers and less inclined to melancholy.
The three Swiss create kilos of music that are tombstones, parasites capable of stimulating gangrene and of laughing while we find ourselves with our stomachs turned upside down.
Two women, I-R, bassist and vocalist, S.M., guitarist and vocalist, and a man, M.K., drummer, create the concept of sound as an obscure place where escape routes from light melodies, from disengagement, from futility are made possible.
They don't joke: needle and club, beating with corrosive and diabolical textures, with rock lightning with a bleeding hand.
We enter the desert: where there is a chance to shatter even the tiniest grain of sand, they do it to become mermaids swimming in the dunes, M.K.'s hammer is a punishment that flies in our breath and the two responsible for the din and discomfort are assaulted without having to reach violent music like black metal and the like.
They grant us the dream but they stain it with feelings of guilt, they try to sink the velleities and their creations produce hives, redness on the skin of the mind.
It's a pleasant listening because their courage, the method they use to scratch mediocrity is full of candour: they sound like perpetually virgin songs, combined with a desire to explore annoyance and to soften it with sprinklings of sweetness that, when they arrive, create relief and good humour, if not also a dishevelled, neurotic, maddening joy.
It is surprising that all this can come from peaceful Switzerland, although in the past we have already had bands capable of being tough, acerbic and sanguine: The Young Gods are a good example. Here, however, the continuity goes further, the battle plans organized and executed perfectly, like surgeons trained to precision, with no possibility of imperfection. And their rocks roll in even if you would like to oppose them: this is their validity, gift, capacity, a continuous flight where the swellings received, at the end of listening to Vexier, are necessary and immediately eager to repeat this liturgical mode of fruition.
A second album that follows the path started with the equally surprising debut of "Maenad", intent however to be a corrosive and unripe ivy, with a scent that you would never expect. Within the five long compositions, we find ourselves inside decadent movies, oil-filled photographs, a theatrical performance that confuses the viewer and long, acidic walks, where the possibility of breathing peacefully is only a hypothesis that they definitely know how to sink.
I highly recommend it, because even poetry has its wrinkles, its cracks, its tiring obstacles to overcome. What you feel at the end of this journey is a sense of benefit that you would never consider and their enormous ability lies precisely in this inexplicable event.
Song by Song
Opiate the Sun
On a lunar territory waiting for the roar, the Swiss sow bullets with their protective case: the slow Opiate the Sun is a fake organ of the sky preparing the insurrection. Shy parallels, in the first minutes, with Dead Can Dance and then the detonator is activated to check if the power of the three is still oiled: mission achieved.
Three Winds
The less acerbic but still sanguine Doommetal manifests itself with a bad guitar and dizzying drumming that calls to itself the work of the bass, which is pure and heavy granite. Distant voices uncover the sky in their few seconds of excellent presence. Then Postrock claims space, everything gets darker and the blood waits for new explosions that, happily, happen.
Seeds
Adorable: lava glue in mutation, spasms of expectation with spirited voices, then feedback opens the way to the pounding display of strength and everything is intertwined, through musical genres and nerve-wracking tensions. The guitar goes round the sky, when it is absent you understand how the rhythm section consists of continuous uppercuts.
Fleurs of Decay
Desertrock moves to the moon where the three are waiting for it: tangles of metal splinters appear and it's a progression of cuts, scratches and avalanches of nightmares with a heavy breath.
Fôret
A thunderstorm lets the water fall for a few seconds and then the apocalypse comes, among drums and stabs of a bass highly eager to bend the softness that the moon requires: the four strings win and are helped by a slow and sly guitar, almost shy in arriving. But then it is sonic frenzy until reaching surprising melodic vocals like a window closed with melancholy. The double pedal is activated for a dark but powerful drumming. And it's a joy to find ourselves in this chaos where the wings break and, falling, we can put our face on the moon and smell it. The end is the breath that slows down with a celebration for a landing that has known sweetness.
Alex Dematteis
Musicshockworld
Salford
28th April
https://open.spotify.com/album/6WNRwaFxTc4GFX30EPINLB?si=4hjSLwPTR0GfEaynUe7aHQ
https://e-l-r.bandcamp.com/album/vexier
