It’s Not As Eerie As You Might Think

Nowadays, it seems like the guidelines previously established by the term “genre” have no meaning. In some cases, this realization can seem like a disaster, but in others, it can serve as a career builder. The dudes in Eerie fit into the latter scenario, with their self titled debut coming out on the notorious stoner/psych/garage label Tee Pee Records.

Eerie isn’t necessarily “new” to the game in the grand scheme of things. With Twilight’s Tim Lehi on guitar (and album art having transposed his amazing tattoo artistry for the album’s cover), Shane Baker of Alaric and Pins of Light on vocals, Futur Skullz’s Moses Saarni on drums and Dave Sweetapple from Witch on bass, the self-described “bi-coastal black metal/hard rock band” have got more than a good grip on their music’s reigns. With any debut, it’s fairly easy to pinpoint what a band has employed both from their influences and their other projects. Though Sweetapple is the only member coming from Witch, it’s easy to hear elements drawn from them (sans Kyle Thomas’s vocals, of course) by way of the heavy Black Sabbath influence seemingly every metal band has.

No time is given to catch bearings with the album’s opening track “Hideous Serpent,” starting with a bombardment of fierce arrangement from Saarni and Lehi that doesn’t let up until the songs’ end, nay, the album’s end. “Yeti” showcases almost 10 solid minutes of the band’s more prog rock side, with an intro built up by Saarni’s capabilities to recreate the fury of a stampeding stallion and a strong reliance on searing solos.

“Master of Creation” follows the same vein as “Yeti,” with a fairly similar sound only really separated by lyrical difference. It’s the album’s closing tracks, “Immortal Rot” and “Blood Drinker,” that show the band at their heaviest and most “black metal” elementally, though it’s still very light. Eerie don’t strictly classify themselves as such, but more pull from facets of the genre in these last two tracks with doom related riffs that go on and on. For a debut record, Eerie has proven their solid comprehension for the current metal market, one where subgenres and details mean less and true talent and understanding mean everything.