I’ve been getting a lot of shimmery, melodic post rock influenced metalcore/screamo type stuff of late such as Tides/Giant, November 5, 1955, Empires, Day Without Dawn, At The Soundawn and such, but when I got this 3 track CDEP/10″ release that features members of Philadelphia rockers Balboa and Towers, (including former digitalmetal.com writer and site friend Drew Juergens) this got my attention.

In three tracks, Elder display a grasp of a more urgent, dramatic screamo prose with a shimmering, layered approach to riffs that’s more in line with post rock, and the end result is a beautiful if short taster of possibly something special to come. There’s an obvious Balboa/Towers under current, but think Thursday or Misery Signals on valium meets Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai. I also get a little bit of the hugely underrated Hirestsukan on some of the guitar work.

Opener, “Town of Clay” is a multi paced, layered, urgent track that ends with a nice segue into the beautifully dreamy instrumental “Shifting Gaze”. “Golden Flower” is the EP centerpiece with just some truly sumptuous, cascading guitar work dancing around the semi screamed but not grating vocals. It’s basically screamo for those that don’t like screamo and want a little more depth.

Anyway there’s only 400 copies of this available, so if your interest is piqued head over to Forge Again Records and check this highly promising act out.

[Visit the band's website]

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