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Ea - Au Ellai review




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Reviewer:
7.0

30 users:
8.33
Band: Ea
Album: Au Ellai
Release date: February 2010


01. Aullu Eina
02. Taela Mu
03. Nia Saeli A Taitalae

One year after their second work, Ea manage to return with Au Ellai. This time the cover artwork is simply magnificent, contrasting between utter black and warm colours, with the birds flying ahead through a fiery horizon. A very good first impression since it catches your eye and prepares your interest for something beautiful.

As the album begins it gives you the impression as if the vocals play an even more important role this time, well, they do, but don't get fooled, Ea's number one role still remains the music and the vocals partake whenever needed, enriching the overall scenery with several grunts. This time though, the music is composed so as to host more vocal lines (maybe they learnt more words from this ancient language or something). The slow guitar riffing and harmonies, as in Ea II, keep their co-headline part along with the keyboards, sharing almost the same amount of expression, completing one another. And for the first time, the drummer seems more vivid, well, don't think he blastbeats the place down, he just offers himself some slightly groovier moments in order not to die from boredom, well, a funeral doom metal drummer's curse. Lament overtakes the emotional expression, with the unavoidable additions of threatening passages that try to escalate the attention of the listener.

Yet, the album fails when compared to its predecessors. There where Ea Taesse succeeds in keeping your interest at high levels with its majestic feeling and Ea II wins your admiration in terms of more diversity and different ambiance when compared to the debut album, Au Ellai, being almost a mixture of elements from both their previous works, seemingly mature, it fails to keep your interest burning, it falls in the trap of tiring and proving that the different characters of Ea II and Ea Taesse when blended together the way the band did, doesn't work. Maybe the recipe just doesn't fit together, maybe it requires another ingredient, maybe it was a step backwards after all, I don't know, all I know is that the third album couldn't embrace me the way the band did in the recent past. It could be the limited ammount of time in which they managed to release their third attempt, only one year, whereas Ea II appeared 2-3 years after the birth of Ea Taesse for which actually we don't know how much time did it take to compose. And how can we, we don't even know who this band actually is, we'd know how much time did it take to compose their debut?

All in all, I'd suggest listening to the albums the way they released them, don't be seduced by the enormous cover artwork, yet, give it a shot and see what it has to tell you after you have cherished the band chronologically.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 8
Songwriting: 6
Originality: 7
Production: 8





Written on 21.09.2010 by "It is myself I have never met, whose face is pasted on the underside of my mind."


Comments

Comments: 11   Visited by: 194 users
21.09.2010 - 21:50
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Imo this one is Ea's best scoring a 7.5 whereas its predecessors would score a 7.0
but on the grand scale of doom it gets surpassed by loads of albums this year.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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21.09.2010 - 21:53
Lucas
Mr. Noise
Right. I loved EA at first but after hearing twenty-trillion other funeral doom albums, it doesn't stand out at all. Ok but redundant.
----
SLUDGE. DOOM. DEATH. Wait, what?

"The reason I'm running for president is because I can't be Bruce Springsteen." - Barack Obama
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21.09.2010 - 21:56
Daniell
_爱情_
I'd say their first is the best but still, it's nothing really outstanding. I really like some drum parts on Taesse, but that's it.
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21.09.2010 - 23:24
Rating: 9
gid

Au Ellai ranks slightly higher than their second album, for me. While it's not pushing funeral doom's boundaries, this album strikes a chord with me. Maybe it's because the first half of "Aullu Eina" is simply magnificent, in the same vein as Esoteric's "The Blood of the Eyes".
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22.09.2010 - 04:24
Rating: 9
Thanntos

Simply love this album and all of Ea's work.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 21.09.2010 at 21:50

Imo this one is Ea's best scoring a 7.5 whereas its predecessors would score a 7.0
but on the grand scale of doom it gets surpassed by loads of albums this year.


I think this is on par with all of their other releases tbh. As for other doom this year, I also slightly disagree. It's right up near the top with me with 'The Howling Void', 'Mar De Grises', 'Hour of 13', and 'Hooded Menace'.
----
I will kill you so hard you will die to death.
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22.09.2010 - 10:48
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by Thanntos on 22.09.2010 at 04:24

Simply love this album and all of Ea's work.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 21.09.2010 at 21:50

Imo this one is Ea's best scoring a 7.5 whereas its predecessors would score a 7.0
but on the grand scale of doom it gets surpassed by loads of albums this year.


I think this is on par with all of their other releases tbh. As for other doom this year, I also slightly disagree. It's right up near the top with me with 'The Howling Void', 'Mar De Grises', 'Hour of 13', and 'Hooded Menace'.



For me the following are better (also including non-extreme doom):

Alkerdeel - De Speenzalvinge
Atlantean Kodex - The Golden Bough
Caskets Open - But You Rule
Cauchemar - La vierge noire (e.p.)
Centurions Ghost - Blessed & Cursed in Equal Measure
Crowned In Earth - Visions Of The Haunted
Eibon - Entering Darkness
Fall Of Empyrean - A Life Spent Dying
Fleshpress - No Return
Fleshpress - Rebuild / Crumble
Forsaken/Fall Of The Idols - Tales of Doom and Woe split
Fungoid Stream - Oceanus
Helevorn - Forthcoming Displeasures
Highgate - Shrines To The Warhead
Hooded Menace - Never Cross The Dead
Hooded Priest - Devil Worship Reckoning
Hour Of 13 - The Ritualist
Insaniae - Imperfeições Da Mão Humana
Iron Hearse - Lunar Funeral (e.p.)
Iron Void - Spell Of Ruin (e.p.)
I Shalt Become - Poison
Krief de soli - Procul este, profani
Las Cruces - Dusk
Lord Of Doubts - Lord Of Doubts
Mar De Grises - Streams Inwards
Monarch - Sabat Noir
Mortalicum - Progress of Doom
Mountain Throne - Serpent's Heathland (e.p.)
Mourning Lenore - Loosely Bounded Infinities
Nomad Son - The eternal return
Ophis - Withered shades
Procession - Destroyers of The Faith
Remembrance - Fall, Obsidian Night
Retro Grave - Again
Rote mare - Sorrows path (e.p.)
Sahg - III
Sardonis - Sardonis
Shattered Hope - Absence
Spirit descent - Doominion
Starve - Wasteland
Tenhornedbeast - Hunts & wars
The Howling Void - Shadows over the cosmos
The nulll collective - De monstris
The Sullen Route - Madness of my own design
The Wounded Kings - The Shadow Over Atlantis
Unearthly Trance - V (release September 27)
Void Of Silence - The Grave Of Civilization


that's excluding demos
Wheel - Wheel
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

Loading...
22.09.2010 - 14:29
Merchant of Doom

It's still a very good album and I would recommend it... 7.0 is far too low!
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22.09.2010 - 17:06
Rating: 7
Elyar S.
Gud är Död
When Marcel doesnt like something it means I have to check it? :p
----
Kiss my ass if you dont like me, I dont care.
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22.09.2010 - 17:13
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by Elyar S. on 22.09.2010 at 17:06

When Marcel doesnt like something it means I have to check it? :p


I said I think it's worth a 7.5. Since when is that not liking an album? All I stated was there are loads of better doom albums this year.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

Loading...
22.09.2010 - 17:20
Rating: 7
Elyar S.
Gud är Död
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 22.09.2010 at 17:13

Written by Elyar S. on 22.09.2010 at 17:06

When Marcel doesnt like something it means I have to check it? :p


I said I think it's worth a 7.5. Since when is that not liking an album? All I stated was there are loads of better doom albums this year.

take it easy man just kidding
----
Kiss my ass if you dont like me, I dont care.
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02.03.2011 - 07:44
Anjana(SriLanka)

Quote:
For me the following are better (also including non-extreme doom):

Alkerdeel - De Speenzalvinge
Atlantean Kodex - The Golden Bough
Caskets Open - But You Rule
Cauchemar - La vierge noire (e.p.)
Centurions Ghost - Blessed & Cursed in Equal Measure
Crowned In Earth - Visions Of The Haunted
Eibon - Entering Darkness
Fall Of Empyrean - A Life Spent Dying
Fleshpress - No Return
Fleshpress - Rebuild / Crumble
Forsaken/Fall Of The Idols - Tales of Doom and Woe split
Fungoid Stream - Oceanus
Helevorn - Forthcoming Displeasures
Highgate - Shrines To The Warhead
Hooded Menace - Never Cross The Dead
Hooded Priest - Devil Worship Reckoning
Hour Of 13 - The Ritualist
Insaniae - Imperfeições Da Mão Humana
Iron Hearse - Lunar Funeral (e.p.)
Iron Void - Spell Of Ruin (e.p.)
I Shalt Become - Poison
Krief de soli - Procul este, profani
Las Cruces - Dusk
Lord Of Doubts - Lord Of Doubts
Mar De Grises - Streams Inwards
Monarch - Sabat Noir
Mortalicum - Progress of Doom
Mountain Throne - Serpent's Heathland (e.p.)
Mourning Lenore - Loosely Bounded Infinities
Nomad Son - The eternal return
Ophis - Withered shades
Procession - Destroyers of The Faith
Remembrance - Fall, Obsidian Night
Retro Grave - Again
Rote mare - Sorrows path (e.p.)
Sahg - III
Sardonis - Sardonis
Shattered Hope - Absence
Spirit descent - Doominion
Starve - Wasteland
Tenhornedbeast - Hunts & wars
The Howling Void - Shadows over the cosmos
The nulll collective - De monstris
The Sullen Route - Madness of my own design
The Wounded Kings - The Shadow Over Atlantis
Unearthly Trance - V (release September 27)
Void Of Silence - The Grave Of Civilization


that's excluding demos
Wheel - Wheel


Of course this is a great collection. I wish I can have all of them in my CD rack
Including Au Ellai
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