ALBUM REVIEW: The Dance Between Extremes – Ego Kill Talent

After a year of locking ourselves away in our bedrooms and buying tickets to concerts in our living rooms, it’s almost amusing to witness artists adapt to album releases like the Chuckle Brothers do a situation – to me, to you, to us. Of course, it wouldn’t be rock and roll if the rulebook wasn’t ripped up once or twice. Brazilian alt-rock underdogs EGO KILL TALENT decided to take a hammer to the follow-up to 2017’s self-titled debut and smash it into a trio of desserts for listeners to dissect one-by-one. The Dance Between Extremes completes the triptych, bringing the previous two parts together with the final five tracks. 

The easiest way to encapsulate the experience of EGO KILL TALENT’s not-so-extreme Dance Between Extremes is to imagine yourself at a festival where the only two acts that are playing back-to-back are ALTER BRIDGE and FOO FIGHTERS. EGO KILL TALENT takes the post-grunge grit of alt-metal’s highest hopes, injecting it into the alt-rock arena-anthem formula Dave Grohl has got so many gold records and Grammy’s from following. We’ve heard those melodies that melt like wax on a candle a dozen times, and there’s no mistake that vocalist Jonathan Correa is a carbon-cut copy of Grohl’s quiet-verse, loud-chorus approach. There’s being influenced by an artist, and there’s idol worship. It’s the latter that The Dance Between Extremes two-steps through the fire with.

When they get it right, they get it better then those that have come before them. Starving Drones could’ve come from Fortress-era ALTER BRIDGE with ease, whilst simultaneously outselling them; EGO KILL TALENT’s ability to bubble and build up a song to breaking point, creating choruses that kick your ass into shape more than a Joe Wicks workout ever will, is far advanced for their infancy as a band. Deliverance delivers, and then some, as they sacrifice your soul to a sing-along so powerful you’ll be sitting on someone’s shoulders swinging your arms side-to-side in no time, pairing the performance with a rollicking riff-and-roll experience.

If you’re going to illuminate your idol worship, it’s always important to ensure you’re not alienating the sounds and shapes that make you who you are. On The Dance Between Extremes, there’s certain moments they slip through the cracks and the illusions come crashing down. Beautiful tries to juggle too many tricks in three minutes to really suspend your disbelief, putting the punk-pop pomp of GREEN DAY into a collision course with brushstrokes of Brit pop and of course, their FOO FIGHTERS alt-rock acumen. When you’re so immersed into their influential illusions, it’s a little jarring to have the rug pulled from underneath. 

There’s something to be said about the state of alternative rock music when EGO KILL TALENT have made a better FOO FIGHTERS album than the FOO FIGHTERS themselves have. There’s plenty of tricks and tropes they tuck away up their sleeves here that feels a little like The Dance Between Extremes is a collection we’ve had spinning around our eardrums before; but why should we complain when the bulk of it sounds so good?

Rating: 7/10

The Dance Between Extremes is set for release on March 19th via BMG.

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