Empire Drowns

Bridges

Written by: BV on 17/05/2013 20:41:34

Empire Drowns is the name of a fairly new doom/gothic/metal quintet hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark. The sound on their debut EP “Bridges” is of a darker nature than I normally come across as a reviewer – nonetheless I rather like their take on this sound spectrum that bears the mark of a rather large source inspiration found in the band Paradise Lost.

The four track EP opens with the title track, a slow and menacing track spanning approximately seven minutes. The soaring lead guitar sound is one of the first things I notice about the track – that, and the rather bombastic drumming. The track soon quiets down to introduce some equally menacing, and rather grim-sounding, vocal work that suits this particular soundscape quite well. Whilst the verse has very little going on save for the vocal work and the excruciatingly laid-back riffing, the chorus is where the real beauty of this track lies due to the epic instrumental passages. The aforementioned soaring lead work is also what brings these instrumental sections to life and justifies the rather long runtime of the track.

As this is ”only” a four track release I am not going to go in-depth with any of the other tracks – instead I would like to praise Empire Drowns for the seemingly high quality of their songwriting that is carefully sculpted for this particular genre, so as to not create unnervingly misplaced songs that could potentially throw off a listener or two. To this end I am also becoming increasingly impressed with the production of the album as many EP’s (in my personal experience) tend to lack the ‘punch’ of a full-length release where details have often been catered for quite a bit more.

With this release, Empire Drowns have laid out their path forward and they only need to follow it and see where it goes. They might become big within this genre if this EP is anything to go by, but I can’t be confident in that at all before listening to a potential full-length from their hands.

7

Download: Bridges, Rats, Stumble Undefined
For The Fans Of: Paradise Lost, Urkraft, Withering Surface
Listen: facebook.com

Release Date 11.03.2013
Mighty Music / Target


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