ELDRITCH – Cracksleep

7.5/10

ELDRITCH - Cracksleep - 7.5/10

7.5/10

Summary

Scarlet Records
Release date: March 23, 2018

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Italian Power/Prog Metal act Eldritch return after a three year absence to add Cracksleep to their extensive catalogue. In true classic Progressive Metal fashion, Cracksleep is a concept album about suitably esoteric subject matter–insomnia. Technically precise, Eldritch crafts some very interesting song structures in an album that manages to be both immediately engaging but also complex enough to reward repeated listens. “My Breath” has an interesting wall of guitar sound juxtaposed against a clear, slow-paced vocal chorus. Eldritch like to start out songs with gentle keyboard fills before lowering the boom with a heavy riff as they do on “As The Night Crawls In”; in this and most of the better songs on Cracksleep there’s a constant dichotomy of the ultra-heavy and the spacious and light.

“Voices Calling” goes right for the riff, and then escalates into a thrashy verse where singer Terence Holler’s voice gets lost in the mix, something that happens with disturbing frequency on Cracksleep; Holler has a clear, high range, but the weight of the production overwhelms his contributions at times, which is unfortunate as he humanizes and adds warmth to an often cold sound. But he and the band hit all cylinders on “Aberration Of Nature”, a monolithic track that comes out swinging and never lets up and features the best soloing on the album. It’s a risky move performing songs like “Staring At The Ceiling” that are essentially about boredom; it is an admirable feat to actually make them exciting. On Cracksleep, Eldritch is equal to the task.

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Eldritch

Author

Daniel Waters

Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.
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