Ember Falls – Welcome to Ember Falls


 

Self-proclaimed Electro-Metalcore futurists Ember Falls call Finland home, but their début Welcome to Ember Falls (Spinefarm) may well have been delivered from some distant, imaginary multiverse where people carry huge Final Fantasy-type swords on their backs and travel via atom displacement. Where sushi rolls are standard breakfast fare, and Natural Born Chaos (Nuclear Blast) era Soilwork has replaced the muzak in elevators. Where bands can combine ingredients like electronica, crazy sick riffs, Speed Metal, and Lounge Music breakdowns that would make Bill Murray proud, into a carbohydrate-heavy stew that will keep you energized enough for your next battle with a towering caco-daemon.

Strangely, when I listen to Ember Falls, my imagination wanders more to Japan than Finland. The songs on Welcome to Ember Falls are arranged with the same fearlessness acts like AA= and Crossfaith employ; no genre is off-limits, no influence too obscure. The album is all over the place, but not in a bad way. With the exception of the power ballad ‘Freedom’ and the Power Metalesque ‘Rising Tide’, the mélange of sounds and styles here works in a way that doesn’t seem forced or heavy-handed.

Ember Falls come out swinging those Gaia Blades on ‘The Cost of Doing Business’, a pummeler of a track that perfectly conjoins the DNA of Soilwork and Killswitch Engage with 80s synth-pop. ‘Falling Rain’ and ‘Of Letting Go’ expand upon that template, exploring Goth atmospheres and Dance Hall, clean vocals, screeches and choir accents. The extremely capable musicians (guitarists Jay V and Calu, especially) manage to continually impress without jerking off all over the songs.

It’s all here, everything you can imagine. A spitting Devin Townsend soundalike against a chanting hardcore backdrop on ‘COE’, and squealing pinch harmonic riffing that would make Zakk Wylde proud. PUYA-style rapping (courtesy of Blind Channel’s Niko Moilanen) carries ‘Open Your Eyes’ with its timely message “The world’s a fucking mess”. Even Dimebag Darrell exists in this futuristic world, a groovy lead section in ‘One More Time’ channeling the late, great Pantera shredder.

If Ember Falls is indeed in the future, the future looks bright.

7.5/10

JASON KOROLENKO