Eremit
Desert of Ghouls

It seems to be one hell of a desert where the trio of Germans who call their group Eremit is setting out for a two-track excursion. It follows their acclaimed debut from last year that according to press material was ground-breaking in its heaviness. The atmosphere of sludge and doom metal will of course make this desert adventure something to behold, and it is sold with a really cool cover for the map that leads you out into the Desert of Ghouls. So, let’s go for a desert hike and see what we find.

There are ghouls there and they are like a marching band doing atmospheric sludge and doom metal, heavy stuff that is often just slowly marching on towards the finish but with some slower parts and some faster paced marching especially when we get to the City of Râsh-il-nûm. There are some growling as well, while most of it is instrumental, and I think that is fortunate that it is kept in shorter supply as the voice is not the greatest. It is good that you hear what the chants are about though, that is not always the case when ghoulish metal is made. The individual steps of the journey are long but the journey as a whole is pretty short and before you know it is done and you don’t remember much but the churning heavy stuff.

Eremit do what they do well, it is good stuff and probably ghoulish enough to please those enjoying that kind of thing. I am not an expert in that area myself and I find myself struggling a bit for the memorable parts of the journey, perhaps the dynamics that sets them somewhat apart from their peers. Still, I struggle to see that these guys are offering anything that we haven’t already been offered, and while they do it really well I am still not sure they deserves to be mentioned among the best.

Did you like the debut album by Eremit? If you did there is a good bet that you will find this one very agreeable as well. The same is true if you enjoys the sludge stuff or if you enjoy the doom. Meeting ghouls isn’t my favourite thing though and I struggle to see what I got out of this hike through the desert, a sense of “that was that” or “where are the ghouls?” is probably the major impressions on my part, that and the thirst that I am about to quench right now…

HHHHHHH