The Gates of Dawn

Every single time I buy a mediocre black metal album and lose a bit of faith in the scene, every once in a while, either this release or something similar to it in terms of quality will snap me back. El-Ahrairah are a raw, noisy but undeniably melodic black metal band from Minnesota who have been releasing a respectably prolific slew of demos since 2009; I've only heard two of them (this one and The Blessing), but assuming they're indicative of the rest of the band's output, it's downright shameful that they haven't attracted more attention. This is flat-out great stuff.

I'm sure that another reviewer more versed in the bigger names in black metal would be able to tell you more about what bands El-Ahrairah draw influence from, but I suppose I'll have to work based on descriptions rather than comparisons. For one, this sounds very, very old - and I don't mean that it recalls the first wave of black metal, I mean that it literally sounded like it was recorded in the 1800s. Most black metal sounds "raw" by virtue of mere existence, if not because of their poor production, but El-Ahrairah's sound goes beyond that - the music on The Gates of Dawn practically sounds ancient, unearthed from a dusty old cellar left untouched for decades. That's not to say the production's inexcusably shitty, though - the guitars are stripped of excesses in bass or treble, but the melodies shine through clearly and uncompromised. There's a lot of bass presence, the drums have enough clarity to keep the snare and kick drum audible at all times (the cymbal work tends to morph together into a static wave of decay), and the haunting, panicked and echoing vocals are just like icing on top of the cake.

Three of the four songs on The Gates of Dawn hover between two and three minutes, which is to say the songs say what is needed and then skedaddle. The melodies are nothing short of infectious - El-Ahrairah cling to 4/4 time, tremolo riffs and alternating blast beats for dear life, but they compensate for the seeming lack of variation by displaying an absolute mastery over their use. Most of the riffs are layered, swooping, high-pitched and flittery, cascading downwards from a higher perch and occasionally soaring back upwards like a falcon catching itself mid-descent. When the band hammer on the lower tremolo chords the music carries an inexplicable sense of power and punch, and even while the higher riffs hum away, there's a lot of interplay between the guitars and bass that keeps the music bouncy and catchy. The occasional slower section doesn't do anything to weaken the band's fervor either - El-Ahrairah's riffs work pretty well within the context of a rocking beat as well, which they demonstrate with the strictly mid-paced, archaic title track.

The brevity pretty much speaks for itself as far as demonstrating no idea ever gets burnt out or overused - the band know which riffs to keep around for a while and when to shuffle them out for a new progression in the song. The final presentation is much, much better than it probably sounds in writing: El-Ahrairah's songwriting is astoundingly concise yet carries a more profound sense of dynamics than bands who write songs three times in length. The band hardly throw anything surprising at you, but it's so uniformly polished that you can't help but to feel a massive sense of respect towards it anyways.

As I write this, The Gates of Dawn has been out for almost eight months, which means that your chances of acquiring and hearing one of the 50 copies of this demo are currently further from zero than they will be in a year's time. If you find a copy of this it'll probably only cost you $5, so I wholly advise you to check it out - it's 11 minutes of riffy, enthusiastic black metal with a cool "ghost haunting a century-old mansion" vibe about it. Most importantly, though, El-Ahrairah display here a firm grasp on how to write good, brief songs that are exactly as long as they need to be, full of addicting riffs and a sense of raw power and push that's rarely ever seen in black metal. Easily one of the best releases of 2012.