AN NCS PREMIERE: ECHELON — “PLAGUE OF THE ALTRUISTIC”

 

I’m trying very hard to tone down the giddiness I feel as I’m writing this. If the words just peter out before I finish, you’ll know I had an aneurism from the effort. I’ve already wet myself, but the less said about that the better. And the cause of this overflow of excitement? First of all, two of my own personal metal gods — Dave Ingram and Rogga Johansson — have teamed up in a band named Echelon. And furthermore, we get to bring you a premiere of the first single from Echelon’s second album The Brimstone Aggrandizement. And furthermore, it’s as good as I imagined it would be.

Yes, you read that correctly. Dave Ingram, the former Bolt Thrower and Benediction vocalist and current vocalist for Hail of Bullets, has joined forces with guitarist Rogga Johansson, whose resume is nearly long enough to bridge the chasm between Earth and Moon and includes Paganizer, Demiurg, Putrevore, and Megascavenger. And that’s not all — check out the rest of Echelon’s savage line-up for this new album:

 

 

Johan Berglund (RIBSPREADER, DEMIURG, THE GROTESQUERY) – Bass
Kjetil Lynghaug (JOHANSSON & SPECKMANN, PAGANIZER) – Lead Guitar
Travis Ruvo (AKATHARTA, CROPSY MANIAC) – Drums

If you’re trying to imagine what kind of audio warfare this quintet have wrought, I’ll make your guesses a bit easier by delivering the stream of the album’s opening track, “Plague of the Altruistic“.

Echelon strike with massive force, while touching a lot of beloved old school death metal bases along their rampaging course. Johansson has concocted an array of riffs that spear the reptile part of the brain and will maketh your reptilian heads to move involuntarily. Combined with the band’s hard-hitting rhythm section, they hammer like the pistons of a big muscle car on an open road, they jab like a giant nail-gun in overdrive, they seethe and vibrate like a nest of radioactive hornets. What’s more, a dismal melody worms through song and is so addictive it will infest your head like a fat maggot… and the guitar solo is just as delicious. (You think that was too many metaphors? Count yourself lucky, because I’m toning it down.)

What’s more Dave Ingram’s distinctive, roaring voice is both ghastly and electrifying. It’s the perfectly ferocious match for this ferocious piece of death metal decimation.

 

Seven other tracks accompany this bombastic opener. Here’s the full track list:

1. Plague of the Altruistic
2. The Forbidden Industry
3. Lex Talionis
4. Of Warlocks and Wolves
5. The Brimstone Aggrandizement
6. Vital Existence
7. The Feared Religion
8. Monsters in the Gene Pool / Sonic Vortex

The Brimstone Aggrandizement will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on December 22, which is close enough to Christmas to eclipse the whole holiday. It will be released on CD in an edition limited to 500 copies, and there will also be a shirt designed by the ghoulishly great Mark Riddick. I have to show you this shirt:

 

 

Damned cool, eh? You can pre-order the shirt and the album, on CD or digitally, at this location:

https://echelondm.bandcamp.com/

And here’s Echelon’s Facebook page; Ever Forwards indeed!:

https://www.facebook.com/EverForwards/

Okay, enough with the words. I did make it to the end of this post without an aneurism, but I think I better change my soggy shorts before I stick to the chair permanently. Here’s the song: