Debut albums are definitely hit-or-miss. Sometimes, emerging talent will blow up on their first release, while others will just fall rather flat. Alternative rock quartet EDENTHORN are on the cusp of releasing their debut album ‘Exist’ on April 20th 2018, the question is, will it rise or fall?
‘Out Of The Dark’ serves as a promising opener to ‘Exist’. Interestingly, the chorus fits well in the balance being not too powerful to blow the track out of proportion, but also memorable to an extent. Single ‘Mind Like A Minefield’ also has its qualities, spreading a positive message within its lyrics and maintaining a consistant beat throughout. Both these tracks have a good promising outlook that hopefully would serve as a quick insight at the rest of the album as a whole. Yet these are from the better tracks off an eleven-song album.
One of the major issues that does fall in quite a few of the tracks featured on ‘Exist’, is that they become too repetitive very quickly. By no means do these tracks not have a potential. Every song from ‘Out Of The Dark’ to ‘Speak To Me’ has a strong start, and has the means to continue exploring the i dividing musical strengths within each track, but the progression doesn’t bring anything majorly exciting to the album. It seems that some end up falling down the same hole of becoming repetitive. Even the few attempts to break out of this such as the intro to ‘Live In The Now’ don’t save it and, inevitably, just seem a little awkwardly placed. However, veering away from the start of this track, the potential is cracked open more and more, if this could be reiterated in every track, there could be something incredibly strong.
There’s ni doubt that the first 30 seconds of grittier basslines in ‘Hearts Still Beating’ or the quick fire rapidness of ‘The Noise In My Head’ show an intriguing movement further through the album. Hearts Still Beating’ does helps save itself from the repetitive falldown by having a strong vocal chorus, maybe not as memorable, but either way, strong vocally and musically which is a good focus and strongpoint Edenthorn work well with. Even ‘The Noise In My Head’ has a good bridge and developed even further in future releases, can lead some of their tracks to truly blow up.
Edenthorn’s new album is highly enjoyable in small batches and there are some good standouts hidden amongst the full length, but as a whole, the album can feel a little drawn out. Nothing enticingly new or exciting comes to some of the presented songs, in the end they could all blend into one large combined feature. Yes, the themes of this album are strong and the songs have a clear potential from the start, but to bring this out even further throughout the entire album perhaps just needs a little more practice.
Rating: 5/10
EUPHORIA OF BREAKDOWN 