Eternal Sleep

Dead Like Me [7-inch] (2013)

John Gentile

Eternal Sleep open their Dead Like Me ep with a massively loud roar before snapping into a series of crushing riffs. The music here is firmly rooted in modern hardcore, with influences drawn from bands like Converge. But, while so many bands do follow in those tracks, Eternal Sleep realize that they've got a great number of peers. So, to keep things interesting, across this four song release, the band abandons traditional song structure echoing the shifting style of grindcore. "Small talk" has about three sections-one with a cacophonic boom, before a riff based rumble, and then a free form coda. The band skillfully sets up a theme, and once it is established, moves onto the next idea. This is hardcore meant to be focused on, instead put to the background of a generic mosh.

The band keeps their lyrics vague, allowing open interpretation. Still, perhaps some nuance or eccentricity here could do wonders. A lot of hardcore bands have lyrics about being angry or hurt, and at times the band comes close to breaking the mold with the vitriolic "You'd bury yourself if you weren't so weak," but perhaps reaching outside standard hardcore topics would really make these lyrics pop.

"Dead Like Me" samples an extended speech. While that may have been done before, the band wisely supplements it with a twisting, avant-garde sound clash that references the futuro-apocalyptic soundscapes experiments of Crass before devilishly snapping to another sample of a young boy innocently talking. It's a choice that shows the band has a tactic, though it's not evident at first. On a related note, the package is a really nice, unique fold-out, futhering the argument for the existence of physical releases. A promising debut and definitely a band to watch.