Esgaroth
Esgar Never Dies
Independent
Esgaroth is based in South Of Poland and has released a few decent, death metal demo tapes back in 90`s, unfortunately not too many people heard music from those cassettes. After long break with making records, they just came back with their first album, new music and four cover songs. I have to tell you that the longer I listen to Esgar Never Dies the better those songs gets in my head. Generally it`s death metal album loaded with best death metal influences of Polish scene.
Vocals approach on the album is so much alike Adam from Hate and it`s okey to say so. It just happens that Esgaroth and Hate have 2 similar vocalists that making it big for their bands and their blackened death metal. I am not going to hide it from you, songs like Esgar Never Dies, Fallen Angel and few others sound very much just like Hate too. So there`s gravitating guitar groove, melodic and atmospheric guitar passages which however make really good songs. In track Charlie, drumming and some music moments is what Vader did in one of their song from The Art Of War EP. So, there are solid foundations and influences in their music and Esgaroth is just waving the same death metal flag along with Hate and Vader that should lead them to inevitable triumph. I do not want to make an impression that Esgaroth plays that much similarly to other bands-no! They are pretty much doing their own thing musically on this album, there`s more doom metal elements to certain songs, it just takes about one hour to realize that it all exists in this album and makes better sense.
Esgaroth takes time to build an atmosphere for some heavy guitar leads, or rule a sonic destruction upon blast beats (not overplayed) and very well played guitar shreds. It`s a bit of everything of it in their songs and they make it even more interesting by playing music at various pace.
Of course, there are brutal moments in music but execution of songs goes much more towards atmospheric riffs and Esgaroth does not stop at playing only extremely, for sure. Their melodic death metal tracks like Nuclear King have great guitar solos where song-writing goes very smoothly throughout. Maze of Coffins is partially a little throwback to Symbolic album by Death.
They use keyboards few times that push atmosphere of the album deeper, into the abyss and blackness of the ocean. Guitars sound blistering on the whole album. Maybe bass is too much backed off into the void, drums should sound a bit more powerful than now and have more human factor to it because hearing a sound of digitalized beats is not necessarily pleasant. There are some minor engineering imperfections but still, I think it`s the album with good production and fresh, textured death metal songs that I am really glad that I`ve had opportunity to hear.
Esgaroth consists of 6 band members, and the album also has 13 guests. They did not cause a chaos in the original Esgaroth songs. On the contrary, all those musicians created an album that is a death metal monolith.
Of course, more stylistic differences can be found in cover songs interpreted by Esgaroth where the main attraction is Metal Heart of Accept. In addition, I think that those 4 cover tracks should be released as an EP, because the album has just too much music in it that should be separated after aggressively played song on drums which is In The Sky.
Vocals approach on the album is so much alike Adam from Hate and it`s okey to say so. It just happens that Esgaroth and Hate have 2 similar vocalists that making it big for their bands and their blackened death metal. I am not going to hide it from you, songs like Esgar Never Dies, Fallen Angel and few others sound very much just like Hate too. So there`s gravitating guitar groove, melodic and atmospheric guitar passages which however make really good songs. In track Charlie, drumming and some music moments is what Vader did in one of their song from The Art Of War EP. So, there are solid foundations and influences in their music and Esgaroth is just waving the same death metal flag along with Hate and Vader that should lead them to inevitable triumph. I do not want to make an impression that Esgaroth plays that much similarly to other bands-no! They are pretty much doing their own thing musically on this album, there`s more doom metal elements to certain songs, it just takes about one hour to realize that it all exists in this album and makes better sense.
Esgaroth takes time to build an atmosphere for some heavy guitar leads, or rule a sonic destruction upon blast beats (not overplayed) and very well played guitar shreds. It`s a bit of everything of it in their songs and they make it even more interesting by playing music at various pace.
Of course, there are brutal moments in music but execution of songs goes much more towards atmospheric riffs and Esgaroth does not stop at playing only extremely, for sure. Their melodic death metal tracks like Nuclear King have great guitar solos where song-writing goes very smoothly throughout. Maze of Coffins is partially a little throwback to Symbolic album by Death.
They use keyboards few times that push atmosphere of the album deeper, into the abyss and blackness of the ocean. Guitars sound blistering on the whole album. Maybe bass is too much backed off into the void, drums should sound a bit more powerful than now and have more human factor to it because hearing a sound of digitalized beats is not necessarily pleasant. There are some minor engineering imperfections but still, I think it`s the album with good production and fresh, textured death metal songs that I am really glad that I`ve had opportunity to hear.
Esgaroth consists of 6 band members, and the album also has 13 guests. They did not cause a chaos in the original Esgaroth songs. On the contrary, all those musicians created an album that is a death metal monolith.
Of course, more stylistic differences can be found in cover songs interpreted by Esgaroth where the main attraction is Metal Heart of Accept. In addition, I think that those 4 cover tracks should be released as an EP, because the album has just too much music in it that should be separated after aggressively played song on drums which is In The Sky.
Tracklist:
1. Esgar Never Dies
2. Fallen Angel
3. Nuclear King
4. Charlie
5. Liberty
6. Maze of Coffins
7. Trubel
8. Pandemonium
9. In the Sky
10. The Birds (Wintershadows Cover)
11. Metal Heart (Accept Cover)
12. Pleasure of Molestation (Hypocrisy Cover)
13. Madness (Basphemous Cremation Cover)
1. Esgar Never Dies
2. Fallen Angel
3. Nuclear King
4. Charlie
5. Liberty
6. Maze of Coffins
7. Trubel
8. Pandemonium
9. In the Sky
10. The Birds (Wintershadows Cover)
11. Metal Heart (Accept Cover)
12. Pleasure of Molestation (Hypocrisy Cover)
13. Madness (Basphemous Cremation Cover)
Review by Slawek Migacz
Added: 10.03.2020
Added: 10.03.2020
Esgaroth
Bandcamp
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