ELDER

A profoundly creative band with a transformative agenda, ELDER were proclaiming their progressive instincts loudly and proudly from the very start. Even on their earliest albums — the raw and doomy self-titled debut, the more expansive but still riff-driven "Dead Roots Stirring" — frontman Nick DiSalvo's vision of a post-SABBATH, prog-embracing ideal was fully-fledged and confidently expressed. As a result, nobody should have been surprised when ELDER's music became more and more adventurous and less obviously attached to the stoner and doom scene that ostensibly spawned the band some 20 years ago. Although still very much in love with the sound of loud guitars, DiSalvo's crew have made it plain that scouting the outer limits of psychedelic possibility is now their primary function. Witness last year's stand-alone "Liminality" EP: a deeply groovy slab of elevated, post-doom with impeccable prog credentials, and in truth, an anticipatory precursor to "Through Zero".

ELDER's seventh album is undoubtedly the most openly prog-adjacent record that they have made to date, and a bountiful realization of all that early, preternatural promise. It still has riffs, of course, and they are among the finest that the band have written, but any limitations that ELDER succumbed to on previous albums have been jettisoned with a rousing cheer. A logical leap forward from the transcendental indulgences of 2022's "Innate Passage", "Through Zero" goes harder and further into progressive territory, with uniformly joyous results.

This is an album of boldness, powered by widescreen intuition. The opening "Sigil To Ruin" sums up ELDER's refreshed perspective across a ten-and-a-half minute magic carpet ride, full of searing melodic bravado, deft time signature trickery and the reassuring thump of a robust and meticulous rhythm section. The band's relocation to Berlin has clearly been fundamental to their progress — just listen to the bubbling synths and hazy swathes of post-rock, Mellotron fuzz that underpin its more elegant moments. Equally, DiSalvo's vocals have gained some fortitude, sitting now at the heart of the mix, as all manner of exotic instrument combinations blossom and bloom around his simple but effective melodies. In its momentous entirety, ELDER's upgraded sound is wonderfully dense and immersive, but gleaming hooks regularly float to the surface, bringing dazzling light to the fore. On the high-octane adrenalin splurge of "Capture/Release", bittersweet vocals in harmony lead the charge, as a knotty façade of earthy, prog metal riffs generate irresistible, space rock momentum, and DiSalvo barrels through the ether like some untamed, spiritual narrator, high on nourishing flurries of old-school guitar wizardry. In contrast, the title track's nine minutes of propulsive stoner fusion settles into a wonderfully serene groove that ebbs, flows and folds in on itself, as all the cosmic trimmings descend upon its steady build towards the finish line. Even more impressive is "Strata". The longest track here, it's a gorgeous, sky-bound blur of dynamic brilliance, with an almost KING BUFFALO-like sense of space and a central refrain that sparkles like the stars, before morphing into a rugged sprint towards lysergic unknowns, buffeted by psychedelic scree and a particularly thrilling performance from drummer George Edert. The last of the opulent epics, "Sight Unseen" may be the most gorgeous of the lot. Slowly unfolding like the first surge of THC after a colossal bong hit, it is both overwhelmingly pretty and gently soporific, as ELDER enter a state of blissful, semi-improvised serenity, underscored by the stuttering throb of a modular synth and Jack Donovan's rolling, rumbling basslines. Picking up speed in an unapologetic nod to NEU! 's archetypal krautrock, "Sight Unseen" is simultaneously hypnotic and undeniably exciting: psychedelic rock with a progressive soul, executed by a four-piece band with outrageous chemistry.

Bringing the curtain down with a delicate flourish, "Through Zero" ends on a bright and buoyant note. "Blighted Age" is a short song by ELDER's usual standards, but it shares its lengthier siblings' delicious depths. A sweetly restrained act of blinking into the morning sun, it reaffirms this band's mastery of atmosphere, while delivering a magical, melodic money shot that brings old-school prog and fresh exploratory fervor together. As with each of the five songs that precede it, it is a very, very beautiful thing.

At a time when the enervating minutiae of life can seem oppressive and debilitating, DiSalvo and his comrades are shrugging off the mundane, hurtling towards more amenable galaxies and basking in the brilliance of a thousand suns. Thankfully, it seems that we are all invited along for the ride.