Ea Taesse

Those who've stopped by Ea's page on the way too this review will probably notice that Ea sing in a "dead, but archaeogically reconstructured language" or something along this lines. So perhaps it's not terribly surprising that this is easily the most predictable, cliched funeral doom album ever, as these sort of gimmick bands (*coughNILE) rarely have anything more then a very thin shell of originality. If someone asked me 'what does funeral doom sound like?' then I'd go straight to this album.

There's a few different styles of funeral doom out there- the torture doom variant, the Thergothon variant, and the bombastic, grandiose style that seems to be pretty popular these days. This album is firmly in the latter category- big drum sound, plenty of guitar leads and pianos playing some very uncomplicated lines, huge choir synths that are a major fixture in every song. It's a fairly pretty, unthreatening sort of Funeral doom that surely can't be terribly popular with the more dedicated fans- I imagine a more dedicated funeral doom dislikes this the way BM fans look down on stuff like Dimmu Borgir and PM fans with stuff like Sonata Arctica- but I don't find it terribly offensive. It's sugar coated but pretty damn entertaining.

I guess the reason why I like this as much as I do is that while it is cliched, it's cliched in all the right ways. Just as it's hard to fault a Slayer/Darkthrone/Motorhead clone if they get the cloning right, it's hard to hate this band. The riffs are pretty simple, but still do the job. The guitar leads are slow and mournful- always supporting the song and never offending you. The synths and keys are omnipresent but again, they're never bad- they fill in the sound nicely and often give things a ridiculously overblown (Summoning would be proud!) and bombastic sound. Ea certainly aren't the most subtle band in the world- but seeing as small, delicate touches are lost on me anyway then that's OK with me.

Yeah, this is a pretty enjoyable record. Ea throw originality out the window and concentrate on making the most pure funeral doom record ever, and for the most part they succeed. It's not perfect- the last movement in particular is a bit too long- but for the most part this is solid and extremely well executed; there's not really anything about this record that I could say is bad. Worth getting, and probably a good introduction to the world of funeral doom.