Elder
Through Zero
BLUES FUNERAL
The magic of Elder continues to be their rare ability to win over listeners who’d normally consider doomy rock music to be a form of abuse. Like Pallbearer, Khemmis, and a select few other exceptional bands in a very crowded field, Elder doesn’t just ensconce the listener with hypnotic repetition, they captivate their audience in a full-bodied way—like a horror-comedy-action flick—by placing as much value on sumptuous melodies and hooks that burrow into the brain as they do their deepening doom-dive into the heart of their songs. As they’re proven with every one of their recordings dating back to their 2009 debut, it seems to always be Elder’s primary goal to maximally expand their sound. Just as astrophysical discoveries might excite Neil deGrasse Tyson so much that his joy becomes infectious to non-scientists, so will Elder’s forays into fresh territory delight those with a broad appreciation of music, thanks to the band’s exuberant eureka sensibility.
Elder recorded their seventh full-length, Through Zero, in Berlin after the band relocated to Germany from Massachusetts in the midst of COVID. The album opens with the 10-and-a-half-minute “Sigil to Ruin,” which is belied by percussionist Georg Edert’s trotting backbeat that provides a shot of adrenaline to the song while Nick DiSalvo and Michael Risberg twinkle away on guitar. Eventually driving into a rawking passage before taking a breather by skyrocketing into outer space, “Sigil” will likely stand as Through Zero’s signature song. The next track is also an epic, although Elder injects much more levity into it than they did the opener. Prog fans will revel in the last third of “Capture & Release,” when DiSalvo and Risberg convene with bassist Jack Donovan to demonstrate what experimental majesty a band can create when they’ve spent two decades working to play together on the same wavelength.
Underscoring the dynamism Elder prioritized for Through Zero, the title track tightens up their performance, rather unexpectedly calling to mind Porcupine Tree at times. “Strata,” is both the softest and heaviest entry on Through Zero, and even though “Sigil to Ruin” is a shade stronger, this performance wows as a showcase of all of Elder’s technical abilities contained in a single composition. The end of the song smoothly segues into the penultimate track, “Sight Unseen,” hinting that Elder could’ve made Through Zero a concept album, perhaps running the risk of boxing themselves too neatly into the confines of progressive rock. The song is pretty chill, for the most part—until it bursts open like a supernova in the final minutes.
The album-closing “Blighted Age” is the only weak link on the record; a pleasant enough listen from start to finish, it finds Elder meandering a bit, which is uncharacteristic of the band, and effectively confesses that they’ve run out of gas. But all in all, with Through Zero—as with 2015’s Lore, 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World, and 2022’s Innate Passage, in particular—Elder prove once again that, now in their 20th year, they’re aging like fine wine. Perish the hack remark but not the sentiment behind it.
