ALBUM REVIEW: Epigrama – Erdve

There’s an awesome video from a few years ago of ERDVE playing in a church. It works as well as it does because the Lithuanian extreme metallers themselves are unassuming, guys in t-shirts with guitars, but looming overhead in the video are statues of saints and angels, and pillars reaching up to the heavens. Both the building and the music being performed within it are manmade expressions of our longing for the sublime. The contrast of everyday folks in search of something beyond. ERDVE’s relentless pummelling walks a thin line between catharsis and suffocation, and on Epigrama, they walk it with the confidence of a long-tenured circus performer. 

The suffocation comes from the tussle between the intensity of their music and the tight confines it exists within. Comparisons with NEUROSIS are both obvious and well-meant; ERDVE match the pioneers’ intensity and volume. But where NEUROSIS draw out their compositions, ERDVE package them neatly in blistering little doses of unrelenting fury. Opener Epigrama arrives like an air raid siren and a punch in the face, and nowhere in the following seven tracks are you offered shelter or a pack of ice. The riffs are undeniably thunderous, but each kick of the bass drum is like a bomb falling from the sky, each hit as clear and sharp as you’d find on a CONVERGE record and with the same precision for maximum impact. If you need a hit of post-metal at its heaviest but don’t have time for a ten-minute crescendo, Epigrama gets to the point and never strays off topic. 

Catharsis comes when ERDVE settle into a groove. Grooves are little oases across the record, like on highlight Ydos, where the stars align and a more familiar sense of musicality pushes back against the chaos. They invite you to ride the beat, get a little comfortable, before another earthquake of discordant down-tuned guitars get back to business. These moments help with finding your footing across Epigrama, but they also bring harmony between the listener and the band. What begins as an abrasive, combative album has a way of teaching you its language so that, by the end, you’re fluent and on the same side. By the closing crunches of Skleistis, you’re swimming with the tide. 

English-language speakers will have to hit up Google translate to decipher what’s on Vaidotas Darulis’ mind, but his voice is distinctly identifiable by its clarity. He sort of shouts over the din, adding to the idea that each instrument here is trying to be louder than the other, and it works. There’s an urgency to his delivery that can’t be ignored, and its drama pairs with the ferocity accompanying him. 

Most impressive is how, despite the constant melee, Epigrama never becomes too much. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, it doesn’t lose itself in senseless heaviness. It’s a finely tuned record designed to take listeners to the edge and soak in the wonders found there. The band have judged each element perfectly to create a monument of extreme metal that reaches for the beyond. 

Rating: 8/10

Epigrama is set for release on May 29th via Season of Mist. 

Like ERDVE on Facebook.