Eldar

"Amaterasu Shiroi" (Album, 2010)

Question: “What would you get if you crossed Laibach with Dead Can Dance and Will?”
Answer: “Amaterasu Shiroi” by Eldar – that’s what.

If your partial to any of the above, or better still, like me, partial to them all, then this re-recording of sold-out demos dating from 2007 and 2008 of Eldar’s Ama Terasu and Solve Et Coagula recordings is definitely one to seek out.

Here, Eldar (aka Marc Merinee and Merce Spica) bring together Gregorian-style chants, military snares, horns, lyrics spoken in Iberian (with their native accents), and a desire to create unshakably thought-provoking martial music, this winds up sounding like part medieval inspired dark ambient soundtrack to hundreds of years of European civil wars and part nightmare score. Each track seems to emerge from the middle distance, carried by a wind that also brings with it echoes of anguished voices and unsettling noise and tonalities. Often as uncomfortable as it is compelling, either way this is a seriously attention-grabbing collection of journeys into darkness. 7/10

Rob Dyer (June 2011)

See also:
A Challenge of Honour
Dead Can Dance
Laibach
Shinjuku Thief
Stahlwerk 9
Toroidh
Triarii
Will