The Erased
So Far EP

It might be the scorching summer, it might be the increasingly morbid desire to appear "weird," but never like this year have I stumbled upon works that have left me quite bewildered. The latest to arrive are Erased and their mini "So Far EP" composed of only four tracks. To describe it, I'll definitely start by talking about each individual song, so let's begin... "Underwater": it's not a track, but an intro (which narrows it down to just three songs). "So Far": early Sepultura-style guitars immediately make me think of the best, if it weren't for the fact that shortly after I hear drums that in production must have been forgotten since they don't make an impact and a voice that oscillates between growl, scream, and semi-melodic, yet without really achieving anything. It sounds like a mishmash of death/black/stoner. For context, thumbs medium/high for the guitars, thumbs overwhelmingly down for everything else. "The bottom of your empty soul": musically, the tune doesn't change, the guitars maintain that Cavalera taste that could almost appeal to me, but here the voices make the difference: cut out that melodic part which made me feel cold on July 8th with 28 degrees in the shade! Rather focus on the growl (which also needs reworking as it doesn't impact at all), but enough with those suffering whines and that basement rehearsal style bass line. We close the Dantean circle with "The belly dancer" where lo and behold, even the guitars are lost. Not their fault, to be clear, but due to a production that is everything except a production. In this track, Our guys pushed the accelerator trying to get as close as possible to thrash metal, until - as usual - the fateful melodic voice intervened to bring snow and ice back in me. So what to say about "So Far EP"? Honestly, I wouldn't know where to start, I would try to move beyond this as soon as possible, giving professionalism and coherence to a project that is still all to be deciphered.