Ektomorf – ‘The Acoustic’

February 17^th sees the release of the new album from Hungarian neo-thrash band Ektomorf; ‘The Acoustic’.  For those of you that bought their earlier release, ‘Redemption’ (2010) you will be familiar with the song ‘Sea Of My Misery’, a melancholic, semi-acoustic track in which leader Zoli switches his vocals to singing.  Following on from the success of this song, the band arranged a secret acoustic gig to see how an audience would receive this new Ektomorf sound, and as you can probably guess from the new release….it went down a storm

The new release, ‘The Acoustic’, starts off quite heavy vocal and drum wise and would be more easily recognisable for Ektomorf fans – with the inclusion of a sitar.  The switch begins from the second song where hard vocals begin to soften and mix with actual singing and a more easily recognisable acoustic sound.  As the album progresses the songs move further and further away from the Ektomorf of old.

‘Be Free’ is a very interesting song and good place to start as it has a nice gentle rock sound for the verses and significantly ups the intensity and volume for the chorus.  However, for me the most interesting songs are tracks 5 through to 10 where the band really show their different sides and have arranged the tracks in such a way as to lead you through the maze nicely.  There are even two covers, the first of Lynyrd Skynrd’s  ‘Simple Man’ followed by Johnny Cash’s  ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, which is exactly as the title suggests; a blues song.  It starts off slow and kicks up the beat into a real Southern style.  I love this song.

The most gentle song on the album is ‘Fate’; a country love song.  But if this is not your thing, do not fear because it’s only 2 minutes in length – short, but very sweet.   The album ends as it began, with ‘Stigmatised’ leading the way back to a heavier sound with sung verses and darker chorus’ and ‘Who Can I Trust’ doing the same but with more growl to the vocals (and the sitar of course).

This album is very well arranged and thought out and will definitely surprise you.  There are clearly a lot of American influences from rock to country, and on the first listen it may confuse, but replay it as it will make sense and is worth the effort.

Track List:

01. I Know Them

02. I´m In Hate

03. Be Free

04. Redemption

05. Simple Man

06. To Smoulder

07. Folsom Prison Blues

08. Again

09. Through Your Eyes

10. Fate

11. Stigmatized