ENDNAME – dreams of a cyclops
(CD, r.a.i.g.)
Combining an attitude of art
with a vision of metal is a very daring plan but the Russian four piece
EndName carry it over very well. Even when they start to lean towards
classical harmonies, as in parts during the track “North” and its opera
ouverture like melody parts, they keep clear of the kitsch territory. There
is not a lot I can stand less in music than that currently all the rage of
heavy metal music with a classical soprano, because this mixture is usually
dumb, stupid and so superficial it doesn’t even reflect sunlight anymore.
That won’t happen to Endname because they do completely without vocals
from the beginning. In this way they seem to see themselves more in the vein
of US-artmetal bands such as Isis or Pelican, which is only halfway true
musically but definitely an advantage in attitude.
The metal underground is
enourmously massive, a global affair of unestimateable size, and for the
most part I am not at all interested due to its shallowness and eternal
self-repetition. What I want to say is, I like the new Killswitch Engage
album as much as anybody and I always get hooked if there is a metal
documentation (mostly about Metallica, though) on TV, but other than that I
am not interested in mythologies, make-up or mayhem. Maybe that is why my
favorite metal bands are usually of the t-shirt and jeans, regular-guy look
variety. Except for Sunnn0))) or something. I am very interested, though, in
musical extremes and extremities, and I mean musical not in the sense of
faster or “evil”, for whatever that means. I mean more extreme in sound,
structure and impact than in image. In other words I prefer Pig
Destroyer’s epic one-track album “Natasha” to the new Megadeth-album
any time. I have no clue, but I believe that EndName prefer t-shirts and
jeans as well to standing around in the woods posing with axes. At least I
hope so.
All of that doesn’t mean
that EndName don’t rock. They are definitely able to lay down a heavy
piece of riffage, even when they, in true doom / sludge style, like to
remain in less than fast tempi and also like to override the rumbling bass
with keyboard sounds so big they could fill a massive hall. If you compare
them to your average metal or doom band, then they are very experimental and
unique. Going for this style, it seems that there are only two ways out to
find high points of extremity. One is to sharpen the point more and more and
more, reduce to the max as the saying goes and turn out a riffage machine
with uncountable possibilities of endless repitition of the same guitar and
drum approach. For instance like Reflector. Or you try to expand the sound by
introducing different kinds of new instruments and textures, anything that
seems to organically fit to the sound. This is the way that EndName seem to
be walking down. In a musical world where introducing tribal percussions
here and there to an otherwise simple and traditionalist approach (though a
very effective one, I admit) supported world fame for Soulfly over the
course of more than half a dozen albums, this is already very daring.
