Elder

***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 live in from a fantastical point of view, not super-literally, and how we as humans processed that; everyone on their own passage through time and space and whatever version of reality they chose for themselves. The phrase ‘Innate Passage’ appeared to me when writing the record. Passage and transition are necessary in the human condition and this process is intrinsic to us. All the growth and introspection we underwent in the past few years totally made this apparent to me more so than any other experiences in life so far.”