Erlen Meyer – Erlen Meyer (Review)

Erlen Meyer are from France and play Post-Metal. This is their début.

Featuring a bold and striking album cover, the album itself is the sound of nightmares made musical and given a soundtrack.

This is dark, heavy and cathartic music. The walls of guitars and screaming vocals conjure negativity and rage. The overall effect is one of devastation and catastrophe unending.

Taking cues from the usual Post-Metal trinity of Cult of Luna/Isis/Neurosis, Erlen Meyer focus on the heavier, darker side of Post-Metal. The band inject their own brand of pure darkness into the style and come away walking alone in a covering of shadows. It’s a bleak and terrible world the band inhabit and all of the songs here are highly emotive in reflecting this apocalyptic, wasted landscape that they exist in.

There is no joy to be had here, just varying shades of blackness and heartache at things lost.

The singer screams his lungs bloody and has an intensity lacking in other bands. He lashes out with serrated vocal barbs and becomes the personification of the abreaction of loss.

A highly emotive and crushing début of Doom, woe and a perfect example of how powerful Post-Metal can be. If you’re into this style then this is essential.