[rating=8.00]
Boston-based Elder seems to have a knack for taking whatever mission or genre they have in mind for their sound and completely mastering it. Though it wasn’t their first, their album Dead Roots Stirring is a stoner rock/metal masterpiece, with the title track providing so many riffs and so much groove that it’s hard to believe its enormity is coming from a three-piece. With Lore, Elder slightly switched gears and took a more progressive rock approach and created another fantastic album. In their latest release, Reflections of a Floating World, Elder continues their evolution with total mastery of their sound.
It’s hard to describe Elder in just a few words because their music is so varied, textured and genre-spanning. Perhaps the single greatest quality of Elder is their ability to change on a dime and take songs to unexpected places. They zag when you expect them to zig. Guitarist Nick DiSalvo can throw out some heavy, low tuned, dirty riffing and stop in his tracks to create a beautiful melodic interlude. This makes Elder’s songs feel far more like compositions with different movements than anything else.
From a song-writing and sonic perspective, there are some qualities that are the same, and some that are vastly different. The stoner and sludge riffs are still present, albeit with some gain dialed down for cleaner guitar tones. Songs like the outstanding opener “Sanctuary” opens with some guitar parts that sound almost reminiscent of Mastodon before opening up the flood gates to incredible lead guitar work from DiSalvo. Like other material from Elder, the music is the star of the show, with limited vocals. Or maybe that’s just comparatively speaking with 4 of the albums 6 tracks clocking in at over 10 minutes and the others not following much behind.
Where the album begins to take a turn is in personnel. For the first time, Elder expands beyond a three-piece with the addition of two musicians to play extra guitars and including keyboards. While it doesn’t completely change the dynamic of the band, it does change song structure and the sonic structure a bit. Tracks like “Staving Off Truth” start out like any other Elder song before DiSalvo drops his guitar out completely and is replaced by an ethereal keyboard part and a bass and drum interlude with Jack Donovan and Matt Couto respectively holding down the fort. “Blind” features plenty of keys and the extra instrumentation also allows for a soaring, harmonized guitar finish. It’s a really nice change of pace and pushes the progressive elements of the band even further.
The keys also add for some heavy psych elements, which are present even when keys aren’t involved such as on the deliciously 70’s “Sonntag,” which is essentially a nine-minute groove-oriented instrumental interlude, and easily one of the best tracks on the album.
If there is one thing missing from Reflections of a Floating World, it is the heavier elements of stoner metal that made Dead Roots Stirring so incredibly great. That isn’t to diminish anything on Reflections of a Floating World (and there are certainly still pieces of that sound in the material), but it is a noticeable shift from choking songs full of riffs versus replacing it with atmospheric, post-rock style, delay and effects driven goodness. Though an evolution that took an element of a band that was really great and morphing it into a different element that is also really good is hardly a complaint. Once again, Elder shows that they are masters of their craft and a band that can repeatedly evolve and grow while keeping the core of their sound intact.
