Egypt | facebook | bandcamp |
Released on January 31, 2016 via Doomentia Records
My interest in North Dakotan three-piece Egypt was piqued when I saw their name had been added to the bill for this year’s Desertfest, and with that festival usually featuring bands that are right up my foggy, fuggy alley I thought I may as well buy my ticket for their Endless Flight. Having said that, with these guys operating in the crowded stoner metal genre they are going to have to offer something fairly special to stop my consciousness from just soaking all their sounds in like aural oxygen, necessary but unremarked upon, such is the stoner saturation point in my life, currently.
The band confidently begin with the longest track on the album, the nine minutes and forty five seconds of ‘Endless Flight’ itself. A blues figure is played out on guitar before the groove kicks in and we settle into a lively but comfortable shuffle. Vocalist Aaron Esterby has quite a harsh delivery, bordering on the razor blades and gravel tones of Mike Scheidt of YOB, but this is tempered by the attitude and attack of the band, which is more indebted to classic rock, Neal Stein’s guitars on ‘Endless Flight’ at points sounding more like Jon Lord’s keyboards than anything six stringed! Drummer Chad Heille brings a lot of swing to proceedings, his drums are up front in the mix, the high hat leading the action throughout and at points I found them over dominant, but when the guitars hit that sweet spot just after the beats and that lovely stoner rock delayed riffing gets rolling then you can’t help but get swept along. When the band operate more in the 70’s end of their influences they are sparky enough to do so without sounding derivative and they remind me of the beautifully pitched classicism of Mos Generator.
The pacing of the songs is excellent throughout, so despite operating in a pretty narrow band of tempos, there is a strong sense of drama and narrative drive within each song. You do still occasionally find yourself checking the track listing to see which song is currently playing, but if you give the album your full attention the individual songs stand up.
‘Black Words’ is particularly strong, and it’s nasty vibe perhaps best suits Esterby’s voice. ‘Tres Madres’ has a groovy strut of almost Clutch-like proportions and features the finest guitar solo on the album, a wiggy, psychedelic tinged epic that reminds me of Southern California’s space cadets Joy… this is a very good thing.
Closing number ‘Shaman’s March’ has yet to fully show its strengths, perhaps its opening riff is just too generic: It screams “We listen to Sabbath and Sleep!” and kind of never gets past that to show me anything about Egypt themselves. Great drumming, again by Heille, though.
So, there is certainly enough about Endless Flight to entice even the most jaded of stoner fans to check them out and I look forward to catching them at Desertfest – I suspect that if you add volume and alcohol to their might grooves then you are in for a very good time indeed.
