ALBUM REVIEW: eremit – neànder

One of instrumental music’s great facets is its ability to inspire. The absence of a lyrical narrative leaves the listener deserted in an aural void with no guide but the wordless voices of drums, guitars and ambience, leaving us to carve out our visual surroundings through imagination. The world we traverse across though eremit‘s six tracks is a conflicted one. Cold, barren, bleak and underlined by a subtle struggle between light and dark as the mood capriciously jumps from one extreme to the other in an almost organic, tangible fashion. One year on from their breakout self-titled debut, German instrumental metallers, NEÀNDER, return for one of this year’s most emotionally charged journeys.

Our first reference point, as we begin to find our aural bearings, starts at the album’s tone; sonically and emotionally. The rich, fuzzy reverb of Purpur (prelude)’s opening moments reaks of melancholy, its gentle guitar passages carrying histrionic power unexpected of such a benign introduction. It’s a small passage, a mere taster for the monolithic proportion of its true form to come, but enough to give a taste of NEÀNDER‘s penchant for slow evolution with the track gradually coalescing more layers of riffs and subtle crashes of cymbals that bring an air of anxiety to the prelude’s end. When Purpur finally rears its gigantic head, the true proportion of NEÀNDER‘s creation becomes clear. The initial riff, laced with leanings of blackened doom metal, hits with biblical levels of groove as the beats of Sebastian Grimberg follow suit, painting this frostbitten landscape black with dread.

Much alike eremit‘s other three heavyweight numbers, Purpur is a long and elaborate feat of musical engineering. Through deft utilisation of its open aural-terrain, the runtime is more than justified as the song’s journey is catalogued through the ebbs and flows of gut-punching tremolo riffs, numerous tempo changes and intriguing interpolation of guitar layers to create eremit’s colossal sound. Instead of digging a riff-sized grave and sitting in it for 10-minutes or so – something that would have fulfilled the ‘doom’ label to a mediocre degree – eremit ensures to cover all of its aspired influencers. Its tracks are long, and challenging – in doom metal fashion – while carrying the atmospherics and raw abrasion of your ugliest black metal, but its truly the innate progressive tinge of it all that gives the record its replay value.

The LP’s behemoths, Purpur, Eremit, Ora and particularly closer Atlas are volatile creatures, the band doing all in their power to make the journey jagged and unforeseeable. At times, you’ll find yourself marching through the snow, spurred onwards by the titanic rumble of bass and drums and, at others, watching a lachrymose sky drift over frozen lakes whilst the winds of acoustic-backed tremolo riffs pierce the air – it is an album that can build you up with vigour but easily snap you in two without warning. What also aids the flow of eremit’s voyage is that the band rarely look back on themselves, keeping their eyes fixated ahead which results in this grand sense of natural metamorphosis.

Of course, it all helps to have a heap of talent to deliver the goods and NEÀNDER don’t fall short here either. The Berlin-based four-piece never miss a beat with strong arrangements from each of the honed craftsman taking due limelight across eremit’s 40-minute runtime. Are there any gripes to be had? Small ones, yes, but they certainly exist. It’s arguable that Purpur does become a little too complacent with its initial riff, as intoxicating as it is, before beginning to morph and Ora manages to pull an inspired conclusion out of a rather flat introduction that doesn’t bring much nuance to these well-charted fields of ice. eremit redeems itself with little effort, to be frank, the album’s finale Atlas effortlessly wiping all minor hiccups from memory upon its enormous figure. Not only does it feature some genuinely creative techniques, like the intro where Grimberg’s drums not only fade in but gradually gain clarity within the mix, or the track’s midpoint where a sonorous medley of acoustics and doom riffs is shattered by the mere removal of the former’s strumming to reveal the true grit beneath, but it also remembers that finales are meant to be a gratifying conclusion – a lost art some might say – and there’s no doubt that Atlas fits the bill.

Emerging from the blitzing cold of eremit’s glacial plains, having weathered its emotional strain and wrestled with its merciless changes of direction; listeners will have certainly experienced more than your ‘average instrumental album’. It stands as a worthy successor to the band’s eponymous debut and serves as reassurance to their flame of creativity and its hunger to grow. With any luck, NEÀNDER will only plan to move onwards, honing their meticulous tools of work while maintaining eremit’s sense of organic flow. Wherever they go, no matter how harsh the road, we won’t be far behind.

Rating: 9/10

eremit is out now via Through Love Records. 

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