Eighter - Something Weird

Doom Drum and Bass

   [FOR FREE]

http://eighter.bandcamp.com/

• 6 songs to download
• For free
• Direct Download
• Listening recommendations: Track Four, Track Six
  

Disclaimer: We have several reviewers on the blog, and after checking back with the initial reviewer I take the liberty to change initial ratings a bit to adjust them on the out-of-5 scale in comparison to all the other records we featured so far.

Original Review rating: 3/5

English

Eighter's “Something Weird” is six tracks of fuzzed as fuck drum and bass. It's certainly the most apt record title I've seen in a while. Who would have thought mixing doom [metal] and drum and bass would work? The band themselves have called it “doom drum and bass”, and I feel that's a rather accurate description that I'm going to crib from liberally for this review. If the phrase 'doom' in a music review pops a giant question mark up over your head: take the blues aspects of early metal, make it slow as molasses, less reliant on sheer volume and more on technical prowess, make it sound as low as possible and cook. In this case, there are no slabs of guitar to get in the way and lyrics also completely absent, which only adds to the really heavy, dirty hip-hop vibe that simmers under all of this. That the mixing sounds extremely raw and rough around the edges adds to whole package really. There is nothing shiny or slick about this record. Aaron Todd's bass sounds like it's playing for the end of the world from a cave somewhere and he's got all day to wait for it to arrive. It fills up any and all space available to it, but doesn't overwhelm or become abrasive even with all the noise and feedback. The drumming is minimalist, not a lot flourishes here. Mike Cooper keeps the beat with a lot of snare drum, the kind that turntablists DJ's make entire albums out of. Again, both instruments are technically impressive to hear, but they aren't flashy about it. It would rattle your core before it blew you away. And yet, there are moments ('Track 3' and 'Track 5' specifically, they don't have discreet names) where things get almost bouncy, jazzy as the rhythm speeds up. The music takes on a blues rock cum hip hop mixture that works out a lot better than it might seem (the bass takes on a lot more of a guitar quality in these moments, and one may even join the fray on 'Track 5'). For 6 tracks of apparent improvisational origin, this could be a Black Sabbath fans introduction to the world of drum and bass. It could be yours too.