Eibon - Untitled EP
May 20 2008 at 04:51:31 AM
This polite gent, Jerome, emails me. He wants to know if I’m interested in reviewing his band’s demo. They’re called Eibon. Sounds like something from TSR’s
Monster Manual. Eagle (giant); Ear Seekers; Eel; Efreeti; Eibon; Elemental; Elephant; Elf; Ettin; Eye (floating); Eye of the Deep, etcetera. What’s its alignment? Psionic ability? Magic Resistance? I attempt to refrain from thinking of how Gygax would’ve fleshed out “the Eibon.” Would it resemble the Yeenoghu? Perhaps share a seat upon the throne of the great Asmodeus? Endure the decades of torment wrought from Archeron’s hand or the very Wand of Orcus?
I’ll bet Gygax listened to old Jazz. Depression-era shit. He would not have dug Eibon. This Is Really Motherfucking Heavy Shit. “The Eibon,” they sound like a monumentally slowed down Karp or a mightily weakened Otesanek (in fuckin’ pace requiscat) fitted with Old Swill goggles, adamantine klaws, leis of shrunken heads. But banish those thoughts come near eight minutes into “Asleep and Threatening,” one of the two tracks featured here on the untitled demo. Eibon oddly via
Louder Than Love and then we’re taking it down to bring it up so we can segue into the head of “Staring at the Abyss,” which is one of those acoustic intros that’s far too short and just plows into some sort of “meditative rock” blah that makes me think of that rectilinear thing filled with the nuclear blue ooze that breaks and rolls into waves as it teeters on its axis. Headshop rock, um, if you will.
Long and short of it is simply trying to do too much within the space of eleven or so minutes. This ain't Maiden. Just plod monolithically ahead. Doc Zhivago burrowin’ in a blizzard; the barrow mounds of Mighty Malebranche; Night Hag rides the victim ‘til Dawn, etc. That sorta shit. Show the sensitive side on the full-length. For now it should be all about the sex big dumb: “Hey. I know what to do. I’m gonna fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you!” Promise, my friends, widda bullet.
[Stewart Voegtlin]
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