Everest Queen – Dead Eden (Review)

This is the debut album from Everest Queen, a sludge metal band from the UK.

Having enjoyed 2016’s self titled debut EP it’s good to have a full length from the band now. This is progressive sludge metal, with an imposing presence and plenty of riffs. The band’s promo blurb states that this is for fans of High on Fire, Om, Mastodon, and Isis, and it’s hard to disagree.

Dead Eden is focused on riffs, while also concurrently not being purely about these. The band are indeed very riff-centred, (and there are some humdingers on here), but thankfully these songs are more than just a collection of good riffs thrown together. If this was the case then it would likely still make for a good album, but Everest Queen have more to offer than just riffs. The band are quite adept at writing and structuring their songs to achieve emotive significance, as well as for pure heaviness and impact. They manage to fill in the spaces between riffs very well, and these tracks are definitely above average quality, especially for a debut release.

The music is textured and covers different moods and musical landscapes. Within the band’s framework they range through sludge and doom sounds, enhancing everything with progressive tendencies that results in songs that explore their surroundings rather than just take in the sights.

Overall Dead Eden is a very strong album, one which I heartily recommend you check out.