Xerosun – This Dark Rage EP
Darkness indeed… Xerosun – This Dark Rage
Self released by Xerosun and reviewed by Stephen Brophy
Ireland has had a rich vein of more extreme Metal Releases over this year, in fact I don’t remember another year with the quantity of quality releases, and this latest EP from Xerosun can certainly be added to the list. In a year where they have been working hard to increase their profile, with a couple of Tours in the UK and couple of Festivals home and abroad under their belts this year and this EP with the excellent accompanying video, produced by Olga Kuzmenko, for the title track have certainly done that.
They are a band that for me don’t get nearly enough attention or merit for the work they do. Having been on the scene for a few years and releasing debut album “Absence of Light” back in 2011 this EP should be a nice stepping stone to the next release. As with any band that uses clean and guttural vocals, and one vocalist, the first thing I look for – is there any distinction between the two, or does it just sound like the same person with a growl, and I have to say I love Martyna’s vocals, it’s hard not to imagine that there are two separate singers here and she powers through the darker strands of Xerosun’s work. The band on the whole sound great, Fiachra & Gareth’s guitar work is excellent throughout, powerful sullen riffs work well in conjunction with Damian’s drumming which is so solid and never overpowering the rest of the sound.
The highlight of this EP has to be that title track “This Dark Rage‘’, it kicks things off and sets the scene for what is to follow. There is also the excellent “Anatomy Of A Lie” which is very strong, but there’s something there that lightens it up a little, still a powerful track. It’s quite hard to pigeonhole this band, there’s elements of a lot of different genres in their music, from Industrial through Death Metal, maybe a little bit of Progressive Metal, but as time goes on it’s better to just listen and if it hits you enjoy it and if not move on, defining everything we listen to is getting too difficult anyway, for me this is a really good EP, it sounds great, certainly there are very few bands making this type of music the way they are. It’s melodic, aggressive and has a nice edge to it, there is definitely darkness in here, but not despair. “Repent, Rewind, Reset” almost has a gothic feel to it, with the clean vocals being a bit haunting. Each track fits in well and the EP flows along nicely, neither sounding the same nor getting boring as you listen to it more you still find it difficult to move past the quality of the opener.
Mark the year 2016, and look forward to 2017 with eagerness, a few of Irish bands having raised the bar this year, there’s a lot more to come and it’s great. Scene’s grow with competition and output, and once the quality is raised everything else follows. Hopefully
Xerosun will be able to follow this one up with a new full length album and widen their fanbase with some more new material.
3.5 out of 5 · Website · Facebook
Track list:
1. This Dark Rage
2. Anatomy Of A Lie
3. I Spared Hundreds
4. The Mother Of Morality
5. Repent, Rewind, Reset