You know me, I'm a sucker for the little guy. That's what this site is all about. Meet Eldrich Horror. Out of North Carolina, this quintet is here to do one thing and one thing only: play some unbridled, unabridged old school death metal. With Untouched By the Sun, if they have accomplished on thing, it is that.
When it comes to vocals, think Morbid Angel meets Vader. Like both of these frontmen, they have a strong presence and guttural quality without becoming incomprehensible. Likewise, the rest of the instrumentation has a classic vibe. This is some chugging, squealing stuff just the way it was played back in the day. "Feeder Planet" in particular develops into a very imposing creature.
After settling into the fairly simplistic guitar riffs, the soloing definitely caught me unaware. And there is lots of variation here. Many influences coat these melodies from your typical death to southern rock. There are also some killer blackened tremolos to be found within.
Moving to the drums, there are some interesting patterns as on "Remission of Desperation." Songs can be a bit on the long side for the style and are capable of getting downright doomy as on the slow and groovy midsection of "To Serve." This nicely offsets the far speedier parts. The most rousing track is probably "Despair," which chugs along like a death metal Motorhead. It's nice and crusty with vocal breaks in all the right places.
You can check the whole thing out for yourself below. It's $8 on bandcamp. Score another one for the little guy.