elahrairah

El-Ahrairah - "Stone Throwers" (Song Premiere)

elahrairah

Death is worshipped.

Death is not a new concept to El-Ahrairah. Aside from their leporid namesake’s Promethean gift of death to the rabbit kingdom in Watership Down, this scattered black metal unit’s previous years of silence after years of quiet, lightly-promoted existence hinted at death. You know the type – that sad, slow, ultimately assumed fizzling of most talented, demo-prolific black metal bands, and after the band’s 2012 demo The Gates Of Dawn, which featured frontman Travis Nordahl in a solo capacity, the now four years of inactivity had rendered El-Ahrairah into an assumed corpse.

Yet, and it did take a few years, this band seems to have broken from the shackles of death, the original 3-piece lineup emerging from a deep slumber with a surprise (first) proper full-length album. Opening the album with a slow-burning drone, “Stone Throwers” makes a surprise left-turn into blasting, melodic intrigue. Fusing the harsh, long-form third-wave atmospheric black metal of the canonic lineup’s early demos with Nordahl’s solo flirtations with Poland and Russia’s scathing tumult, the anthemic “Stone Throwers” may speak of death worship and the afterlife, yet exudes energy and life. El-Ahrairah lives anew.

El-Ahrairah’s self-titled debut will see a May 25 cassette release via Greek label Underground Soundscapes with art by the talented Dan Wieken of Blood Folke. Listen to “Stone Throwers” below.

—send all promo material to Jon Rosenthal at [email protected]

Follow El-Ahrairah on Bandcamp.