ALBUM REVIEW: Ex Est – Ggu:ll
Tilburg has some solid history when it comes to heavy, experimental music. Home to the likes of Incubate (RIP), Netherlands Death Fest and of course the globally revered Roadburn Festival, it was inevitable that new bands would spawn at the epicentre of it all. GGU:LL (roughly pronounced as ‘ghoul’) is one such example. Starting out as a noise rock duo comprising guitarists Gert-Jan Kerremans and William van der Voort, the band evolved to the blackened doom quartet that is now releasing their second studio album, Ex Est.
Thematically centred around the concept that someday all that is will no longer be, Ex Est sees GGU:LL imbue their wickedly dark doom with noise, drone and psychedelia to produce an album that is as hypnotic as it is harrowing. Opener Raupe sets a scene like a barrow whose inhabitants are slowly coming back to life, crawling toward Falter which explodes into a seismic riff as if these reanimated corpses have found their targets for revenge. It’s a barbaric, if basic assault, but the straight-ahead riff is underpinned with noise rock sensibilities and the resulting wall of sound is enthralling.
Samt al-ras is a masterclass in layering and building tension. Starting as a minimalist, delicate and sorrowful number, the build is subtle for the first couple of minutes and even when van der Voort‘s beastly vocals come in, there is a restraint and control that is hard to fathom. The pay off comes at the midpoint when the separate ingredients have become some wicked brew, complete with tension drones, chilling howls and a glacial tempo signalled by Bart Waalen‘s cymbals hauntingly chiming through like a banshee on the moors of mortal existence. This all results in Ex Est‘s most spine-tingling offer.
Whether by design or just a happy accident, there’s a fascinating structure to Ex Est, wherein the seven tracks increase in length up to the middle of the album, before steadily decreasing. It’s far more subtle in the back half than in the front with tracks four through seven all falling in the seven-to-eight minute range, but it gives the album this clear focal point at its core. There may be nothing to it, but on an album all about the unavoidable end of existence, it makes sense that the album – like life – builds up to the big event, and then fades away, the echoes of what came before reaching out into a finite eternity.
Signing off with the gargantuan Voertuig der Verlorenen (Vehicle Of The Lost), GGU:LL get one final gut punch in. There’s a distinct horror built into even its most delicate moments, pairing curated feedback with chords that ring out endlessly, and slowing to such a crawl that you think it’s all over before a shotgun blast of drums and guitars leads up to one final guttural roar. Weighty and ponderous all at once, it’s the perfect summation of an album that illustrates the beauty, fragility and meaning of existence.
Ex Est is an effective and bewitching release and while GGU:LL may tread the boards of safety and familiarity, their penchant for infusing noise rock adds a novel and welcome grit to a nihilistic and sombre release. Now stick this on and wait for the end of the world. May as well get your preparation in now.
Rating: 7/10
Ex Est is set for release on October 21st via Consouling Sounds.
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