ekoveefrits-nowhere-reviews

Review from Forgotten Path Magazine; Issue 6

Thu, 25 Sep 2014 21:23:13 +0100

From: Forgotten Path Magazine; Issue 6

Published: November 2014

So it happened that while reviewing a second promotional package from Canadian label “Hypnotic Dirge Records”, I found two absolute non-Metal releases. In this case, probably the weakest album from this label’s camp. I may seem cynical, but in the case of Ekove Efrits, the main factor is the project’s country of origin - Iran. Even in this much globalised world, a heavy music project from the Near East is still quite a sensation. Though after listening to the latest album “Nowhere”, one might wonder if there are any relationships with heavy music at all...

My verdict is simple - it is yet another example of a modern hipster’s creation, where the project’s leader becomes lost in his searches or wants to play everything. Ekove Efrits have tried Black Metal, Doom, Ambient and DSBM directions and now dared to delve into something close to the Darkwave genre. The project’s sole member is assisted by Australian band’s Lycanthia vocalist Megan Tassaker, who enriches the album with her wonderful voice. Alas, this is the biggest (and probably only) plus of the album. The music is lost everywhere and nowhere - between atmospheric DSBM sound, Darkwave atmosphere and maybe even Trip-Hop strokes. Slow, partly acoustic music varies with fused guitars and depressive moods. The latter, even if it adds something to the album, is far too little to make it a solid release. Melancholy is dominant in the album and it is expressed via simple Ambient/Darkwave compositions. I see it as an attempt to squeeze something interesting, however using the tools that absolutely don’t fit here. Or maybe the reason is that the author does not know how to use and play with them. It looks like Ekove Efrits will continue to make mistakes in the searches, without finding its own path and drowning in unexplored and absolute alien tides...

Rating: 4.5/10

Reviewed by: Odium

Review from Necromance Webzine

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 22:13:47 +0100

From: Necromance Webzine

Published: July 12, 2014

Original Link

*Google translation of Spanish review

From Iran comes to us this very interesting band. Define it becomes quite complicated because they move so many different records that I have not clear. Only have a common line, the nostalgia. From this root whispered voices combined with clean vocals with ragged vocals with electronic sequences (enough), female vocals occasionally a violin, and all this with great taste and quite successful. Really I can not name you any reference band and I think that something fabulous, because somehow create their own style. Slow, deep, sad music, a sadness that at times load current. Look no conventional metal in this issue, here is what we emotionally charged experimental music.

Rating: 7.5/10

Reviewed by: Manuel Pérez

Review from Disfactory Webzine

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 22:12:56 +0100

From: Disfactory Webzine

Published: July 10, 2014

Original Link

*Google translation of Italian review

The progress of the recording moniker Ekove Efrits continues with "determined disregard" and now no one is amazed to see that much in the evanescent expansion undertaken by Count De Efrit firmly in his music. The project continues his exploration of the darkest and most hidden intricacies of the soul, and the negativity of the "vacuous sense" of life, that path has distanced itself from the primary source, which was (and depressive Black Metal rending) to embrace an increasingly territory dark / gothic / trip hop and leaden liquid. Get stuck here and there electric guitars accompanied by the "usual" scream suffered (the voice segment, however, deserves a separate discussion), but everything seems to put "on stage" specially not to break completely with the past discourse. I would promote this choice, what comes out is once again interesting, once again-as in the predecessor Conceptual Horizon immediate short-course, saw "the" how you have to go and find the right mood (yes, Nowhere could make run the risk of not transmit anything if you ever administered at the wrong time), but as a small and obscure work as Ekove Efrits begins to take on its own form, albeit still very abstract, an approach made things uncommon linked to Special thanks to their plots. While listening to Nowhere could come to your head this or that group (rationally view the proposed amendment is not personal, or at least nothing that will make you squirm with emotion), but when we will have to "sum up" then we will talk exclusively music belonging to the project Ekove Efrits , and rightly so, it is right "exalt" someone from a different time working solo at the exclusive service of the music (I say getting very, very few crumbs in return).

Arpeggios dear to the scene dark and raining delicate without hasty commitments, but also try to be as immediate as possible, the voice of Count De Efrit ranges from scream to deeper shades / or diverted theater, while the big surprise (and I guess the main inspiration particularity of the entire disk) is the almost constant presence of Megan Tassaker (borrowed from stable mates Lycanthia ) as a companion voice; His voice embellishes it all with elegance, gives the songs a strong sense of ethereal able to bring that breath of new music from the band. Just to give an idea of what you will find there is enough to think of a Parallel Presence and his ability to revive the The Gathering was the end of Anneke. Yes, it is strange to hear certain combinations associated with the name Ekove Efrits , but on the other side-just to appease those few-there are the usual "movements zanzarose" and cryptic, heavily diluted certainly, but still ready when you have to punch the clock.

Desire to escape the confines, the desire to give the listener as much as possible, it is to appreciate the effort of all the risks involved, "when" you get to grips on the one hand music "rational" but also deliberately "out of the schemes. " Virtually impossible to determine a profile of who can be the ideal person for this hearing, Nowhere his followers looking for them, but does so with exaggerated shyness and refined, almost in a whisper. If you are among those people who still love to take the time, who still know how to listen to something without being swallowed by the chaos "download / listen / trash" then perhaps you might have a chance here (but there is still someone who searches for "opportunity"? ).

Towards Nowhere , lulled and alienated. Small personal advice, ascoltatevi the song Infinitesimal in the middle of the night, when sleep is coming now inexorable, and then ....... good sleep at all.

Reviewed by: Dukefog

Review from Deaf Sparrow Webzine

Sun, 06 Jul 2014 20:07:56 +0100

From: Deaf Sparrow Webzine
Published: July 5, 2014
Original Link

Hypnotic Dirge Records from Canada likes to sign artists from all over the globe including Russia, France, Italy, Ukraine, and Germany. Ekove Efrits is an Iranian band helmed by the Count De Efrit, the ominous mastermind who has experimented with depressive black metal, Gothic metal, and trip hop, creating an eclectic selection of work. With his latest effort, Nowhere, Ekove Efrits focuses more on the Gothic, and has combined efforts with Megan Tassaker – one of the female vocalists for fellow Hypnotic Dirge labelmate Lycanthia. Her voice is fucking beautiful. She will serenade you like Jack Dawson and you’re her Rose DeWitt Bukater (had to Wiki this shit) as she holds you up at the front of the ship and you head deeper into the Atlantic on the Titanic. If this is your dream, Lycanthia should be where you’re looking if you can still be serenaded with some Gothic/doom/death metal straight outta’ Australia.

As for the album itself, it starts out pretty good and begins to sound like Ekove Efrits previous effort, Conceptual Horizon, with its black/Gothic/trip hop sound with an added bonus of Tassaker’s voice. However, this soon begins to sound entirely the same. This is deeply unfortunate because Count De Efrits’ experimental nature is vastly underrated but it seems with Nowhere that he really didn’t go, well, anywhere. It’s pretty reserved with some brief moments of excitement but they don’t last for long and leave you wanting. If the Titanic analogy can be continued, you’re in the back of the car getting rammed by fuckin’ Leonardo DiCaprio but then he climaxes just a bit too early so the sex is…meh. The black metal just doesn’t get very black and shines only briefly in songs like “Parallel Presence,” “One Truth and One Confession,” and “Sword and Wound.”. There is a bit too much reliance on trip hop to fill the gaps and songs like “Infinitesimal,” “Metamorphosis,” and “At the Gates of Oblivion” are too slow-paced, non-metal and do not add much to the album other than making it longer.

It becomes more and more clear that Nowhere is like Titanic’s PG-13 rating and should be considered very entry-level due to how few there are metal moments that exist. This doesn’t mean it’s a lost cause but that it might not be relevant to a lot of metalheads. It’s a shame because Ekove Efrits has a lot of potential to do great things but this album just doesn’t make the cut. All we as fans can hope for that maybe that he just needed to get this out of the way and that more efforts like Conceptual Horizon are, well, on the horizon.

Rating: 3/5
Reviewed by: Cole Olson

Review from Pest Webzine

Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:30:36 +0100

From: Pest Webzine

Published: June 1, 2014

Original Link

Fourth album from this Iranian one-man-band I have reviewed a couple of times before, but unfortunately an album that starts to dissociate Ekove Efrits from the Black Metal scene and attempts to introduce it in the Alternative Ambient Electro (at times even Trip-Hop) world where I'm sure it will have no chance at all, zero! The melodies are beautiful again, Count de Efrit knows his way around the synths, keys and piano, but his clean vocals are absolutely awful, the attempts to throw in some Black Metal elements just to keep in touch with the scene are pathetic and the listeners will feel this. I think this album represents a loosing battle for Ekove Efrits, one that will drive away the fans he gathered so far. And the good but boring female vocals don't help much either... If you're into Ambient Electro stuff you might like it, but I hate to see yet another promising Black Metal act going to waste, that's why I'm so vehement.

Rating: 4/10

Reviewed by: Adrian

Review from Aristocrazia Webzine

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 20:25:16 +0100

From: Aristocrazia Webzine

Published: March 24 2014

Original Link

*Google translation of Italian review

Count De Efrit is an artist with a clear vision: the Iranian musician in the past had already sent clear signals about its willingness to diversify the project proposal Ekove Efrits with "Conceptual Horizon" and maintain a more rough and tied to the history of depression in the Silent Path of the debut "Mourner Portraits" . Then waiting for the release of the new album, the first of the two sides of music mentioned to understand how much and how he was going to make it more and her recognizably: I was hoping to get the explanations I received with the release of "Nowhere."

The murky waters of Black Metal were absorbed by a compositional structure that has altered their DNA in the direction of a vision-Gothic and Dark Ambient strapresente, which are conjugated portions of Trip-Hop sounds. If it were not for the inclusion of electric guitars still attracted by dirt and a small part of the buzz, for the use of altered scream, muffled and a couple of trips emotional despair still tied to the times of darkness that haunts and inspires thoughts which boundless hatred and self-destruction, the sound more "black" you may not even mention. Even more if we take into account the fact that this time the uvula of the "Count" is not the only one to perform, sharing the stage with the elegant, sweet and full of melancholy Megan Tassaker, singer we have already met as part of Lycanthia , Australian band also part of the roster of Hypnotic Dirge Records.

Inside the disc long instrumental passages alternate with soft and velvety interiority complex situations and fought: the ethereal feeling clean singing provided by the excellent and extensive use made of synthesizers is found to coexist with the disturbing obsession raised by sudden extremes that blacken the atmosphere. It's a dark and gloomy in many ways less abysmal one in which this representation of today's Ekove Efrits welcomes us, with the dramatic vein and the melancholic ready to caress the mood in decline addolcendone, but not blocking, the constant fall in the direction an endless oblivion.

"In Nowhere" is a fine work, difficult to absorb, frankly unsuitable for anyone who is not in possession of patience and a desire to deepen the individual aspects of each individual track in it. It requires dedication, attentive listening, prolonged and seems to be heading in the direction of that part of the audience that in his collection sees the presence of names such as Katatonia, The Gathering, Ulver and Netra. I would not recommend, however, only to those who follow these formations: I would suggest instead as a possible purchase to anyone who needs and wants to feed vivid emotions, agguantandole and making their own over time. The work of Count De Efrit is poetry in music.

Reviewed by: Gabriele Strano

Review from Volumes of Sin Webzine

Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:37:16 +0100

From: Volumes of Sin Webzine

Published: March 16, 2014

Original Link

Ekove Efrits is comprised singularly of the Iranian Count De Efrit, who formed the project in 2001. After four demos and a split, De Efrit found himself picked up by Belarus label Possession Productions who released his debut full-length effort Suicidal Rebirth in 2008. His following album, Hypermnesia, would find an independent release in 2010 before he landed a deal with Hypnotic Dirge Records to release 2011's endeavor, Conceptual Horizon. Now, still partnered with the same label, Ekove Efrits is on it's fourth full-length record entitled Nowhere, where Count De Efrit has brought in Megan Tassaker, an additional vocal talent from the gothic metal group Lycanthia. How well does this duo deliver the material found on the new release?

If you can imagine the obscure soundtrack that Porthishead provides (think "Glorybox" and some of the other stuff from Dummy) coupled with female vocals similar to that of Amy Lee from Evanescence with extremely small samples of your average black metal band thrown in then you pretty much get the entirety of Nowhere. Essentially the material has the same idea as Netra's Sørbyen (reviewed here) but to a lesser extreme; the content from Ekove Efrits barely classifies as anything relatively close to metal, while Netra's album carries an even weight of both trip-hop/electronica and black metal. Given that Count De Efrits pronounces his material as that of purely ambient/atmospheric depressive black metal nature, this misconception and expectation leads to major disappointment of the album from the beginning of the second track.

Considering that the material was summed up in one sentence above, there's really not a lot to elaborate on. There are an abundance of keyboard effects and twisted sounds that make up roughly ninety percent of the material, including clean piano keyboards, synthetic violins and nature sounds that include chirping birds, rain, wind and thunder. Megan's vocals carry a large portion of the content and are clean, beautiful and harmonious; she does an outstanding job and her voice does fit the style of music. There are very few black metal elements thrown about, mostly being an extraordinarily short electric guitar section or some faster drum programming as well as the expected vocals of the genre added in every now and then.

Nowhere isn't exactly what one would call a bad album, but it's definitely not going to appeal to most metal heads; especially those into the harder stuff. Even those that can hang back and enjoy Netra will not necessarily find this content appealing due to the immensely low relation to metal in general. It's not a recommended listen, but if you've still got a lot of love deep down inside for Portishead, or your guilty pleasure is Evanescence, give it a shot.

Rating: 6/10

Reviewed by: Villi Thorne

Review from Les Eternels Webzine

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 04:39:02 +0100

From: Les Eternels Webzine

Published: February 21, 2014

Original Link

*Google translation of French review

Imagine for a moment a woman of infinite class that walks you to the top of his oversized heels, impeccable maintenance. It arrives at your height and loose a loud burp. The woman remains beautiful, but it still loses a bit of glamor. Another similar situation: you are in the restaurant and you ordered a " medallion partridge in sauce juice frozen truffle ", it throws. The server brings you, you are about to eat when you notice that there is a very dark curly hair and over. It remains a medallion in his partridge etc.. etc.., but still, the hair there ...

Well Nowhere fourth album Iranian project Ekove Efrits is a bit like that. A mixture of high class party marred by black metal at best without added value, rather incongruous to worse. I must say that if the trip-hop mix, ambient and post-rock is pretty well designed, incorporating a dose of black metal to all - not the one who face not rather slimy black or genre Agalloch The Great Old Ones - is a very difficult task. The trip-hop, this is delicate, cold of course, but delicate, the beats are fragile and add them something crappy, it's complicated. Spektr not do too badly out of Cypher , Count De Efrit, the man behind Ekove Ifrit seems to have more talent in the composition of bright parts, but fails completely in the metal. Consequence: the best title is "Infinitesimal" a gem worthy of a 100th Window , where an incredible purity Count De Efrit transformed into David Tibet sharing the song with a lady at the beautiful vocal organ, such Sinead on "In the Name of England. " The final duet "At the Gates of Oblivion" / "Belong to Nowhere" in a very pictorial post-ambient registry is also delicious (and it contains some disturbing sounds great views).

Common point of these pieces: they do not contain black passages. The latter voluntarily dissonant passages with trip-hop, are more interesting on "Sword and Wound", a little awkward on "One Truth One Confession" that's still a strong enough title (despite a late water coil ), but fall right next to "Public Theatre" or "Parallel Presence" (the final blast, then what is it?), ruining blow the credibility of these two pieces. It's really annoying, because like Silent Path, another project of the Iranian melancholy, Count De Efrit excels in the year to portray an atmosphere corresponding to a rainy afternoon autumn, showing a fascinating sensitivity ("Blessed by Nature" is an interlude of a simple and touching beauty in the near Stoa of the style). The artist remains free to create what he likes and if some inner demons require it to make it more " dirty "a copy that could be crystal clear, we can only accept it. But if these horned beasts could go for a ride elsewhere and go haunt groups trve black, not many people would complain no.

Much like the enigmatic Vertebra by Australasia, there is little left and chronicled in these places , Nowhere is an interesting work that attempts to reconcile what is difficult to reconcile (ie pure and cold lightness of trip-hop beats and how the roughness of a soft black, but black anyway) without completely arrive. Ekove Efrits nevertheless gives an idea of the extent of the class of one-man band Count From what Efrit when it comes to describing a musical atmosphere. The second part of the album, leaner in-black metal sound, a very good level, even partially forget early album quite indigestible. Nowhere is therefore generally visit, until finally the irreconcilable or reconciled.

Rating: 13/20

Reviewed by: Winter

Review from Rock Metal Essence Webzine

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 03:56:20 +0100

From: Rock Metal Essence Webzine

Published: February 27, 2014

Original Link

*Google translation of Italian review

The Ekove Efrits are a project atmospheric / post-rock led by multi-instrumentalist N. Saman coming from Tehran, Iran, returning to the market in December 2013 with their fourth album, "Nowhere."

A disc that continues the evolution and maturation of the songwriting of this composer through fifty minutes dark music, enveloping, mysterious and atmospheric, steeped in the tradition of black metal and electronics, as well as trip-hop. Compared to their predecessors, Nowhere is it more cinematic and soundtrack in sound and approach, as always accompanied by sounds coming treated in detail. Finally, rich successful female vocal parts performed by guest vocalist Megan Tassaker of autraliani Lycanthia, the album does not disappoint them on a technical level, there on the executive, capturing the imagination dell'ascotlatore from its first note to the last. A product thus appears to be very suitable for supporters of organizations such as Ulver or Manes (among others), and it never fails to make long listening ethereal sounds and sensations melancholy, for a sound experience exciting and totally enveloping, balanced between the genders.

Rating: 78/100

Reviewed by: James Mezzano

Review from Legacy Magazine; Issue #89

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 03:55:29 +0100

From: Legacy Magazine; Issue #89

Published: February 2014

Magazine Website

*Google translation of German review

The Iranian Count de Efrit himself says that he sees its origins in Black / Gothic Metal, which is increasingly open to influences from post-rock, doom, experimental and ambient music over the years. These are already clearly heard on the debut album 'Suicidal Rebirth', will be on the following works 'Hypermnesia' and 'The Conceptual Horizon' reinforced, and 'Nowhere' is a logical continuation of his cross-genre, moody style. The Black Metal shares from early days confined to occasional breakouts (which now and then unfortunately rather disturbing effect in the sound), binds "Nowhere" also more Trip Hop and - a female vocals - for the first time utilizing Megan Tassaker from the Gothic Doom band Lycanthia. On the whole, Megan goes perfectly with bittersweet compositions like 'Public Theatre' or 'Parallel Universe', especially when Count de Efrit in clear acts duet with her. And as Megan's voice sometimes drifts into a little Pushy, is at Count de Efrit still neat air upward as far as the Black Metal vocals. Instrumentals like 'Blessed By Nature' are soulful, atmospheric gems that you at Ekove Efrits place since time immemorial and will not want to miss. A highlight on "Nowhere" is the wonderful 'infinitesimal', which is like a quiet stream. 'Sword And Wound', which metallischste piece, although impresses with some beautiful melodies and leads, however, suffers back on vocals. The following 'At The Gates Of Oblivion' with a dazzling Megan and calm ambient piece 'Belong To Nowhere' compensation at the end for many things - yet it somehow remains a mixed thing.

Rating: 9/15

Reviewed by: ES