to the many styles they are drawing from. For me, those are some of my favorite styles so finding this album was so territory. Dreamy synth lazily soloing over the top reminds me of California psych-pop band WEST INDIAN GIRL. Heavy a more uplifting, high-sky region--one in which the keys and guitars seem to support the skyward exploration of our

more ethereal than the sludge of the doom side of stoner metal and maybe just maybe some musical flourishes of As the album ends with soft guitar in an answer to the intro of “Catastasis,” the sense of wholeness that comes through is one more aspect arguing for Elder as singularly crucial. Innate Passage ends with its shortest song, the eight-and-a-half-minute “The Purpose”. As with each of the four preceding songs, the opening is calm, though that doesn’t last long. The pace remains subdued, but unmistakably Elder-ish riffs dominate the soundscape. The verse sounds especially glorious; keyboards go a long way in adding depth to this piece.rejoin and re-populate the sonic field. Drums slowly re-introduce themselves until at 13:10 the full band rejoins to play The nearly-15-minute “Merged in Dreams - Ne Plus Ultra” opens dreamily. Bass and clean guitar echo broadly around a simple drumbeat as a warm, wiggly synth line adds depth. Of course, big walls of distortion come crashing in eventually, and a palm-muted, thrash-influenced riff gives this song an urgent quality. As the song enters a quiet phase, organ comes in to complement the multilayered vocals and gentle guitars, though that is again soon eschewed for some heavier riffs. Catastasis” begins Innate Passage with a pointedly bright perspective and the most complex vocal harmonies that Elder have ever produced. Alongside DiSalvo, Innate Passage features a guest singer for the first time in Behrang Alavi (Samavayo), who adds his voice to what’s already a career performance for DiSalvo as a singer; his voice is more confident, has more presence, and more reach than ever before. over which Nicholas DiSalvo enters with a Bent Sæther-like vocal. The guitar-centric section that then ensues is very

In spite of the length of the songs and the consistent tone, I never come close to getting bored. The multi-layered Then at 5:42 we emerge from another high-speed tunnel with Mellotrons and softly arpeggiated guitars and bass into instrumental passage in the middle of the fifth minute, just before the grungy MOTORPSYCHO section that follows.Coalescence" (9:47) I love the time the band takes to patiently establish the baseline fabric of the song--with great