"The Switch Has Melted" E.P. - Eighth Day Descent (2006)
I bloody love Eighth Day Descent.
I say this for two reasons: one, because they’re an awesome live act and a great bunch of blokes. Two, because whether or not you consider yourself a metal fan or can’t stand the genre, there’s every chance you’ll love them too.
Despite their wilfully apocalyptic moniker, the band are heavy but surprisingly accessible. Their sound is an amalgamation of various influences, melding the abrasive full-on assault of Dillinger Escape Plan to the Deftones’ artful sense of texture and the darker edge of acts like The Acacia Strain and Between the Buried & Me. It’s not quite death metal, it’s not quite hardcore - in fact, it’s not even something you can particularly pin down within their approximate field.
Perversely for the genre, they’re also extraordinarily musical – and not in an irritating, sub-Dragonforce power-metal sort of way. Although admittedly coarse, the songs are powered by rhythm, dynamics and an ear for melody which cuts through the bluster and cliché usually associated with the growl-and-grind approach of most extreme bands. Consequently, tracks such as Desert of Winter and Timmy O’Toole never stay in one place for any great length of time, constantly switching modes and hopping across genres to create a mini-symphony of ideas and styles.
During one particularly drunken Saturday night a couple of years back, I witnessed the band’s second gig in a dingy basement. Back then, when frontman Larry took to the mic it was just a lot of nervous pacing interspersed with the occasional grunt. Nowadays, he barks with a full-throated vehemence which bristles with anger and sincerity. Both live and on record, you get the sense of a calculated precision at work - despite yielding everything from human pyramids to their bassist leaving the stage via whatever route happens to take his fancy, their live show never strays so far from visceral theatrics that the music isn’t allowed to dominate. It’s organised chaos.
This kind of music rarely fills stadiums, but then that was never the intention. EDD’s ethos is infused with an all-for-one, band-of-brothers mentality which could only have come from just getting out there and getting involved: loading up the van, travelling from town-to-town and helping to support and nurture the local scene. To this end, they have all the makings of a great underground band: passionate, intense and powered by a fervent belief in the purity of their own convictions. Like the two other great metal acts to emerge from the Warwick University band scene in recent years (Professor Plum and Pink Widow), they have to power to win hearts and fire souls simultaneously.
The switch has melted - open your ears, open your mind.
I say this for two reasons: one, because they’re an awesome live act and a great bunch of blokes. Two, because whether or not you consider yourself a metal fan or can’t stand the genre, there’s every chance you’ll love them too.
Despite their wilfully apocalyptic moniker, the band are heavy but surprisingly accessible. Their sound is an amalgamation of various influences, melding the abrasive full-on assault of Dillinger Escape Plan to the Deftones’ artful sense of texture and the darker edge of acts like The Acacia Strain and Between the Buried & Me. It’s not quite death metal, it’s not quite hardcore - in fact, it’s not even something you can particularly pin down within their approximate field.
Perversely for the genre, they’re also extraordinarily musical – and not in an irritating, sub-Dragonforce power-metal sort of way. Although admittedly coarse, the songs are powered by rhythm, dynamics and an ear for melody which cuts through the bluster and cliché usually associated with the growl-and-grind approach of most extreme bands. Consequently, tracks such as Desert of Winter and Timmy O’Toole never stay in one place for any great length of time, constantly switching modes and hopping across genres to create a mini-symphony of ideas and styles.
During one particularly drunken Saturday night a couple of years back, I witnessed the band’s second gig in a dingy basement. Back then, when frontman Larry took to the mic it was just a lot of nervous pacing interspersed with the occasional grunt. Nowadays, he barks with a full-throated vehemence which bristles with anger and sincerity. Both live and on record, you get the sense of a calculated precision at work - despite yielding everything from human pyramids to their bassist leaving the stage via whatever route happens to take his fancy, their live show never strays so far from visceral theatrics that the music isn’t allowed to dominate. It’s organised chaos.
This kind of music rarely fills stadiums, but then that was never the intention. EDD’s ethos is infused with an all-for-one, band-of-brothers mentality which could only have come from just getting out there and getting involved: loading up the van, travelling from town-to-town and helping to support and nurture the local scene. To this end, they have all the makings of a great underground band: passionate, intense and powered by a fervent belief in the purity of their own convictions. Like the two other great metal acts to emerge from the Warwick University band scene in recent years (Professor Plum and Pink Widow), they have to power to win hearts and fire souls simultaneously.
The switch has melted - open your ears, open your mind.
posted by Chris Carter at 9:16 AM
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