Brecht Mit Der König
Cause Darkness Took Our Hearts
Rising
Demon, Demon, Angel
Spiders
Im Nebel
Sadness I
Nero
Sadness II

This release from Son of Eris initially caused me a lot of problems. The main problem being that Neo-Folk and I have our off days. Usually I would prefer to have my fingernails ripped out with a pair of pliers rather than face another piece of guitar strummed and ‘oh woe death and pestilence is upon us’ piece of music. Not that I totally hate this type of music you must understand. I just need to be in the right frame of mind to fully appreciate it. The first time I played this recording I immediately ran for my toolbox screaming ‘toenails next’. It had been a bad day. What made it worse was that I actually paid for this and wasn’t given this to review in the first place. Jo, bless, understands, and even she was surprised when she realised what I had purchased. Blame War Office Propaganda. I do. Everything so far released by them was shit hot so by not doing my homework, happens all the time, I didn’t realise what I was going to get.

Fast forward a couple of days (you can even imagine the spooky music and wavy lines if you so wish) and I’m in a fantastic mood. A good day at work followed by great sex. Well I enjoyed it and that’s all that matters. So now’s the perfect time to revisit and reassess Son of Eris.

As you can gather from my preamble Son of Eris are a Neo-Folk act. Actually they are more than that. Although predominately guitar and drum based they do add portions of dark electronics to accompany the German and English based singing. When I say singing I really mean whispered as there’s no shouting out loud, thankfully, like so many other groups are prone to do. A huge point in their favour. Also in their favour is the way that they have coupled the vocals to the very crooning melodic…fuck it…totally catchy tunes. Told you I was in a great frame of mind. In fact this is easily on par with the excellent Werkraum release on Cold Spring, and no I don’t get paid to compliment them either, which was the last and only Neo-Folk style recording that I enjoyed and still play to this day.

Fast forward 48 hours. Fuck the wavy lines. In a cunt of a mood. Say no more. Play Son of Eris again…and unbelievably actually liked it more this time around. Perhaps it was the way that the music, although structurally uncomplicated, is darker in tone than first imagined. The vocals definitely seem more sinister and perfectly suited to the muted tones of the accompanying musical arrangements. The last track, ‘Sadness II’, has become a fitting sombre tour de force ‘pass me the razorblade quick’ closure to a recording that surpassed even my doubting Thomas outlook. This will of course appeal to all lovers of Apocalyptic / Mournful / Neo-Folk but also is worthy of investigation by those of you wary after being burned by lesser efforts. If it can change my mind then it’s doing no wrong.

War Office Propaganda must also have a lot of faith in this new German act as they have seen fit to release it in a suitably stylish, spare no expenses, black digipack. Their faith will be rewarded.

ANM