Elitist
Caves [EP]
01. Transcend
02. Principles
03. Array
04. Caves
05. Odeon
[Independent | 7/20/10]
I was fortunate enough to stumble upon Los Angeles’ Elitist last week while I was searching through myspace for bands that don’t suck. After a seemingly endless pile of crappy hardcore and deathcore bands, I was completely overjoyed when I finally found these guys. They play technical-melodic metal and they sound like what I imagine you might get if Veil Of Maya and Misery Signals had a baby. That’s a very good thing. They’re an unsigned band as of this writing, although with their talent and skill I don’t think it’ll be that way for too much longer.
Caves is the bands first release, and they’re off to a very strong start to their musical career. Consisting of 5 tracks, the EP is full of fast and tight melodic sections often layered with complex rhythms. It’s obvious that Elitist have found the sound that they want and they stick to it throughout Caves with consistency, and this isn’t a bad thing at all. They manage to make their music sound both pretty and heavy at the same time; something I wish more bands could do as well as these guys. One random thing I love about this EP: sometimes when listening I feel like the music resembles something off of a soundtrack to a Metroid game, which is awesome. I read an interview where one of the band members says “We wanted the listener to imagine the experience walking through an epic cave like in the Planet Earth series”. Lots of the gameplay in Metroid games involves walking through epic caves so hey, maybe I’m onto something. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Either way, on with the review.
