Albums

Album Review: Ehnahre

[Album: The Man Closing Up]
[Label: Shellshock]

For those who couldn’t quite get their heads around Kayo Dot’s ambient, offbeat passages on ‘Blue Lambency Downwards’ you may find solace in Ehnahre’s rougher, heavier sound. Consisting of ex-members of Kayo Dot, ‘The Man Closing Up’ is a grimly titled journey through erratic time signatures and a patchwork of confused, crackling riffs that make Kayo Dot’s entry seem like nursery music. It’s an album that is instantly difficult to take any enjoyment or pleasure from. Whereas with Kayo Dot you could at least immerse yourself in the softer ambience, or at the very least appreciate the musical diversity on offer, Ehnahre doesn’t indulge in this luxury, with overpowering (and for the most part poorly-delivered) doom-style vocals layered on top of angular riffs that are constantly uncomfortable and unsettling to listen to.

Whether it is randomness for the sake of being random or a genuine attempt at diversifying the sounds within the tracks’ rather extensive lengths, there is never a sense of cohesion which makes the album even more unaccommodating for those just looking for a sludgy mix to lose themselves in. Drums fade in and out at unpredictable times, sounding as if drummer Tom Malone is busy attending to something else that is keeping his hands busy. There are some rough highlights amongst all this negativity however – the tail end of ‘Part II’ (no proper song titles here folks, Ehnahre are far too cool for all that nonsense) features an eerie vocal performance, a wail that cries with an almost boyband appeal if it wasn’t for the sound of a masscare of bloodcurdling guitars pounding away in the background.

The thing is with this short album is that it’s difficult to appreciate it as a whole, when there are only little bits that succeed in grabbing your attention from the dirge. ‘Part III’s opening minutes are dense and heavy, almost soundling like an early Neurosis. But once again the track becomes victim to the overreaching ambition to create a horrifically random sound that gives the listener absolutely no respite, reducing itself to nothing more than repetitive crashes of chords and cymbals that bore rather than shock. That’s because, whilst it may not sound like anything you’ve heard before, by the time you’ve listened to the first few tracks you begin to realise that Ehnahre’s music is trapped within its own rather unoriginal and tedious patterns.

So, after branching off from the more familiar and pronounceable name of Kayo Dot, what have the musicians of Ehnahre managed to produce here? It’s certainly a dark, gloomy and sombre affair, unforgiving in its depressingly slow shifts of motion which does enough to leave the listener questioning the point of life and living. But in the end the atmosphere is undermined by the conscientious effort of the band to chill the listener into depressive submission. It never really goes anywhere, and eventually grows dreary to the ears, especially when there are a few promising moments here. Sure, it’ll find a fanbase somewhere out there, but Ehnahre’s debut lacks the imagination and variety that made Kayo Dot such an intriguing proposition, even if you couldn’t enjoy them. Sordid and morbid, indeed, but in the end rather turgid.

For Fans Of: Kayo Dot, Sunn O))), Neurosis

Band Link:
Ehnahre

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