ETERNAL ELYSIUM's last two discs (2000's "Spiritualized D" and 2002's "Share") were highrise-levelling exercises in Japanese psych metal. The recordings captured Yukito Okazaki's amplifiers groaning and suffering under inconceivable duress, riffs clashing together like some seedy cock fight, and bottom end capable of single-handed deforestation. The tracks that this three-piece churned out were as jaunty as they were thunderous, featuring powerhouse changes with the subtlety of an engine fire and recalling the lumbering, hazy crackle of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Watchin' You". The albums were so potent and uncompromising; one couldn't help but wonder, could this be magic? Could this be love? Could this turn tragic? You know that magic often does.

Three years and several lineup changes later (including an American bass player) EE has finally arrived at another full-length. "Searching Low and High" would be their first album recorded mostly in the states (Donner and Blitzen studios in Arcadia NY). Plus, they've been signed to the label for Japanese bands most likely to cause brain hemorrhages, Diwphalanx Records. Unfortunately when all the bong smoke clears, it appears that EE has decided to make a SPIRITUAL BEGGARS album.

In their defense, it is at least an approximation of a good BEGGARS album ("Another Way to Shine" comes to mind). Tana's basslines and backing vocals sound great, and the songs are memorable, especially "No Isolation" (you'll have an easier time getting rid of your termites than chasing the chorus out of your head). "Before the Morning Comes" works some hand claps and hints of a Hammond keenly into the mix, and the groove is hypnotic in a late-nineties Swedish sort of way. But really, this doesn't sound like the same band that created such wrecking-ball platters in the earlier part of this decade. The changes are too smooth, and sound far too much like a hundred other bands in the genre. Even the epic 16 minute closer "Green Song" offers no giant-boulder-from-the-sky riffs that crush the cranium. "Searching Low and High" is not a bad record, but certainly pale and puny compared to past efforts.

- Marchman

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/eternalelysiumjapan

MP3 SOUND SCRAP: Green Song

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