***Prog and psych rock masters, Elder, have released their new, critically acclaimed album, Innate Passage, via Stickman Records in Europe and through Armageddon in North America. It‘s the band’s sixth full-length, and finds the mostly-Berlin-based band in the post-pandemic era as veterans at the forefront of a league of progressive and heavy groups working in large part under their influence; a stately presence as reliably forward-thinking as they are unpredictable in sound. They are among the most important acts of their mostly-still-emerging generation. Genuine leaders in style and expressive intention. Innate Passage is further proof why. In Spring 2020, Elder released their fifth album, Omens, and with it established a claim on their most prog-leaning interpretation of sprawling heavy rock and roll. Two years later, Innate Passage builds on many similar concepts, but outdoes its predecessor on every level of performance, weight of its impact, interplay between founder Nick DiSalvo and Mike Risberg’s guitars and keys, the now-settled-in drumming of Georg Edert—who made his debut on Omens —and bassist Jack Donovan’s tonal warmth underscoring the shimmer of DiSalvo’s leads. Alongside DiSalvo, Innate Passage also features a guest singer performance for the first time in Behrang Alavi of Samavayo. The album is a culmination of everything they’ve done before, and that’s reason to celebrate, but more, it is that after more than 15 years, they’re still pushing forward to places where neither they nor anyone they’ve influenced have yet gone. Says DiSalvo: “This record channels the surreal world we...
2XLP $33.25
03/10/2023
CD $14.50
01/06/2023
***NOW AVAILABLE ON CASSETTE!!! Following 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World and the 2019 experimental EP The Gold & Silver Sessions, it was anyone’s guess what the band’s next full-length might have in store. Having cemented their own heavy progressive rock sound, the latter EP showcased an exact opposite side of Elder, more rooted in sparse krautrock and even jazz-tinged jams. Omens answers this speculation with a contradiction that embodies the spirit of ELDER: somehow, there’s even more everything. In five cinematic songs, lush, intricately interwoven melodies grow and dissolve into spaced-out jams. Massive riffs thunder down into a churning sea of psychedelic sounds and unpredictable grooves carry away the listener. Elder paints pictures with their music, and Omens shows the band experimenting with an even more colorful palette—with good reason. After thirteen years, this is the first full-length recorded with a new lineup including guitarist MICHAEL RISBERG and new drummer GEORG EDERT, along with guest performances by FABIO CUOMO on Rhodes piano and synthesizers. This is music for a vacation from reality—to lose oneself in another world. And yet Omens is not purely an exercise in escapism, but also reflects the increasingly bleak, confusing and antagonistic times in which it was written. Composed as a concept album spanning the lifespan of a civilization, the album also reads as a commentary on our own society hell-bent on profitability at the expense of our own lives and environment.
CD $13.75
06/19/2020
2XLP $33.50
05/08/2020
MC $9.75
07/17/2020
***BACK IN STOCK!!! With Dead Roots Stirring, their second full length album, ELDER returned from a three year silence with five songs charting new epic territory. Tremendous musical and songwriting growth take this album into a great new territorry. Equal parts hypnotic rhythm, uncompromising heaviness, and soaring melody, Elder navigated between moods and sounds effortlessly. Heaviness is not sacrificed by any means, the power of the riff is undiminished, it is further elevated by the sonic space inbetween giving us time to let them sink in completely. Continuously moving both backward towards their roots in heavy rock while also moving forward into more progressive and psychedelic territory, this is a huge and influential step forward. "Where the first album was heavily indebted to Sleep’s stoner caravanning and dropping out of life, the new five-song collection has expanded Elder’s reach sonically, branching into a more complex realm of psychedelic melody.”—The Obelisk. Pressed on clear 180 gram vinyl and housed in deluxe gatefold jackets with poster.
CD $13.75
12/01/2017
2XLP $33.50
12/01/2017
MC $7.50
05/04/2018
***BACK IN STOCK!!! ELDER's self-titled debut album from 2007 was an impressive offering of psychedelia-tinged stoner rock and doom that set the tone for the band's later progressive developments. In 2006, three longtime friends and members of the small music scene anchored in the port city of New Bedford, Massachusetts got together with the mission of making music that was heavier and more brutal than anything happening around. The first version of Elder was an interesting beast, combining sludgy riffs, primitive black metal vocals and Genghis Khan-themed lyrics. After toiling in these murky waters for a year, the band shed their extreme metal origins and emerged with their first proper album, Elder, an album that would already establish the band as some of the best riff-dealers this side of Birmingham. To celebrate the record's 10 year anniversary, this reissue comes with a second LP containing the band's first ever recordings from their early days.
CD $13.75
12/01/2017
2XLP $33.50
12/15/2017
***BACK IN STOCK!!! It’s time to get euphoric. With EDLER's fourth full-length album, an epic piece of rock music will be released unto the world. And we think that’s a reason to celebrate. Band members and friends NICK DISALVO, JACK DONOVAN and MATT COUTO already dismissed any last remains of stoner metal stereotypes on Lore (2015). Their current album, which was written following the long and acclaimed Lore tour in moments of intense creativity, is a journey into prog rock and psychedelic worlds. Six monumental songs, huge in sound, each of them their own cosmic expedition. What begins as driving mid-tempo rock filled with heavy guitar riffs repeatedly erupts into melodic tangents and clever variations. The high demands that DiSalvo places on his own songwriting seem to become more unfettered from minute to minute—as does the pleasure of listening to him. Guest musicians MICHAEL SAMOS and MIKE RISBERG have added additional guitars, pedal steel and keyboards to the trio, making Elder’s sound more voluminous than ever, and the influences found here range from '70s prog dinosaurs such as Yes, King Crimson or Pink Floyd to their kindred spirits in the European psychedelic and space rock scenes. And it is of course a cliché, but Elder bring their own organism to life from all these influences. Elder will be taking Reflections of a Floating World live to European fans in July and August 2017, followed by a USA tour in the fall. The East Coast trio will be...
CD $13.50
06/02/2017
2XLP $33.50
06/02/2017
MC $7.50
06/02/2017
***BACK IN STOCK!!! ELDER is a heavy psych band from Boston, USA. Founded by long-time friends NICHOLAS DISALVO, JACK DONOVAN and MAT COUTO, the group spent years plodding in Sabbathian territory, releasing their self-titled debut 2007, followed by Dead Roots Stirring in 2011. They also released a two song EP Spires Burn / Release in 2012 showing m`usical growth in a more refined vision of the band's sound. With Dead Roots Stirring and Spires Burn, Elder took a surprising turn away from their more traditional stoner rock roots, incorporating uplifting melodies and progressive song structures into their lengthy epics. Their third full length Lore is a watershed moment in the band's history. Joining the interplay of heaviness and melody which has become the hallmark Elder sound are a host of new meanderings through uncharted kosmische territory; krautrock, prog as well as classic heavy rock and doom can all be heard unfolding throughout the record's five songs. By giving equal credence to riffs and atmosphere, Lore bypasses genre constraints, the group's penchant for progressive songwriting and melody shining more brightly than ever. While Elder's sound is now much more evolved and varied, it is still consistently based around rock and metal, originally influenced by such heavy landmark bands as Black Sabbath, Sleep and Electric Wizard.
CD $14.50
03/03/2015
2XLP $33.50
07/07/2017
***BACK IN STOCK!!! After two full-length releases on Meteor City, Massachusetts based ELDER release two new tracks clocking in at 22-plus minutes. Two tracks channeling California desert rock ala Kyuss, stil retaining some of the Sleep influence of the earlier releases. Cover art courtesy by FRED STRUCKHOLZ of South of Heaven Press.
LP $19.95
05/15/2012
CD $6.75
02/10/2015
MC $7.50
02/01/2019