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End Boss - Album Review: They Seek My Head

07 Apr 2022 // A review by Kris Raven

Wellington's End Boss featuring members of Beastwars and Ghidoragh and the incredible vocals of EJ Thorpe, have delivered one of the finest albums of 2022. A heavy music juggernaut, which combines huge lashings of doom, stoner and heavy metal with cinematic, post metal, ethereal vocals and elements that leave your ears comfortably bleeding and your mind blown musically and lyrically throughout.

Heart of the Sickle really sets the tone for the record, there’s moments of climatic light folding into doomy spine grating riffage. Vocally EJ Thorpe takes us on a story tellers journey of the struggles of the mind and the song further builds into dark harmonious symphony, with beautiful accompanying background vocals rising above the intense riffage. The interplay between guitarists Greg Broadmore and Christian Pearce, is so cleanly mixed from right to left and the way they complement each other and find space with melodic dissonance and heaviness. 

Second single Punished, soars with lush vocal harmonies, haunting synths in the distance and continues and develops the blue print of what's to come. The balance between the incredibly tight rhythm section, the combo of pummeling low end and moody and dark spacey guitars that flow throughout are offset by powerful and atmospheric vocals and incredible melodies. 

Becomes The Gold; I love the vocals in the outro and the way the addition of the male vocal with the background woahs compliments the lead vocals over the top, so clear and interictally placed, they all sit perfectly together. Covet has this off beat groove with huge surging fuzz. What I like about the composition of these songs is they introduce these massive pounding grooves and then the choruses just soar. Nail and Tooth reminds me of early Mastodon before then ramping up tempo. While it's one of the shorter tracks it really just punches all the way through.

The Crawl (!), I love the vocal line "That’s what haunts the mind the most". The song crawls along like a dark shadow stalking, huge strummed out chords in the chorus and syncopated drum and guitar verses. 'Thorpe's' stretched out vocal lines as she sings ‘come home’ are so beautiful and carry despair and longing. The guitars and drums are so low and slow, heavy and aggressive, with a piercing guitar solo floating underneath the mix almost, it works so well with the feel of the track.

Lorded Over begins instantly brutal but then cuts into tasters of harmonious guitar licks then returning to the solid chug run. This song starts expanding further, creating more twist and turns. The symmetry of Thorpes' vocal stylings with huge doomy, metal riffs and pounding Bonham esque drums keeps the listener searching through the peaks and valleys that the songs take you throughout.

The production has a clean yet raw, thick and rich sound. 'Nathan Hickey's drums pop with such an organic huge kick sound. The dynamics of the guitars are perfect and you can identify the flourishes throughout the riffs. Such a huge and impactful sound. The title track and album closer They Seek My Head begins with a slow moving bluesy riff, before the crunching guitar textures double down elevating the song while the drums keep the song grooving along. The outro gives you eerie chills with the drawn out vocal lines and melodic guitar sweeping over the sludgy under scourge.

I cannot wait to see End Boss live and hear these album tracks in their live habitat. So good! 

Rating: ( 5 / 5 )
 

Releases

They Seek My Head
Year: 2022
Type: Album

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