By: Anders

Posted: Jan 17, 2006

This is the second time I am having an Ektomorf album under the hammer, the judgement of the first Ektomorf album I ran into, wasn't overly positive, thrashy hardcore mixed with ethnic influences and sounds, like a light version of Soulfly. This band hails from Hungary, and lets their traditional moods and atmospheres shine through the rather hard-hitting metal.

Once again the music is rooted in late Sepultura, early Soulfly material by the sounds of it. Heavy and crunchy riffs, mostly delivered slowly and moshing, the beats are getting hammered off slow as well, and that kind of breaks the whole deal down, and makes it a bit dull. The pace does change now and then, and there are a few up-tempo songs, though most of the play, is the slow crushing thrashy and crunchy moshing. The vocals are pretty good, an aggressive and emotional scream, not that far off Max Cavalera to be honest, but still a good and worthwhile effort, with the emotions shining through, and that's quite important in music like this. The vocals safes a lot and I can't even imagine how dull the whole deal would have been without the vocals being as fury and into the game as they are.

The album is recorded by Tue Madsen, and he has given the band a heavy and crunchy and very fitting sound. The music is thrown out of the speakers, and attacks the listener. The guitars and drums come out very aggressive and the vocals are placed well in the mix. Despite the great production, the material doesn't really move much, there are some good elements here and there, but the songs get old way too fast, almost no matter what the band does, it sounds like a rehash of the already mentioned bands, and that makes it a boring trip through the 12 tracks. I guess the album will be killer for fans of Ektomorf and the other 2 bands mentioned in here, but for the rest of us, there is more interesting music out there.

Rating: 4/10

Ektomorf website

Distributed in Denmark and kindly supplied by VME

Buy the album at

Print