I remember getting into Elder years ago and, as luck would have it, finding they were playing about an hour from where I live. That sort of thing rarely happens, but it gave me the chance to see them while I was still discovering what they could do.
I thought about that a lot while listening to “Gestalt”, the second album from German three-piece Plaindrifter. There is plenty here that will appeal to Elder fans: the patience, the weight, and the sense that a song can take you somewhere you weren’t expecting when it began.
“Moth Murmuration” takes its sweet time. It seems in no particular hurry to reveal everything, but Christ, when it builds, Nils Stecker’s lead guitar is sensational. The crescendo is magnificent, and suddenly all that time spent getting there makes perfect sense.
In contrast, “Eternal Season” has no preamble. It gets straight into it, almost as though it is picking up another part of the same story. Then there’s the groove in the middle. My goodness. With André Tinibel on bass, this is the sort of thing that demands a nod of the head before you’ve even realised you’re doing it.
It is a very blokey record, if that makes sense to anybody. You can picture a room full of blokes with beards, stroking those beards and discussing the riffs. There would be plenty to talk about.
Marcel “Uwe” Kloß, who handles both vocals and drums, gets his turn as “Hyborian Age” swirls around. There is something primal being pulled from within here, even as the words suggest something altogether more mystical. “Forbidden lands where time stood still” gives it the feel of a fantasy novel being told over music that could shift mountains.
There is light and shade, too. “Respite” brings keys into the picture, adding a little colour and allowing the record to breathe. It is a brief pause, but it matters to the shape of what follows.
“In Anima”, featuring High Desert Queen’s Ryan Garney on vocals, is arguably the heaviest thing here once it gets going. The way these songs merge into each other is special, and by this point it feels almost more sensible to consider “Gestalt” as one continuous piece. The changes in mood and intensity are part of what makes the whole thing so absorbing.
“Debaser” is the longest and perhaps most experimental piece of the lot. Anyone expecting a Pixies cover is going to be disappointed, although there is precious little else to be disappointed about. “No one knows what I’ve seen,” comes the vocal, and perhaps he means it. There is certainly a sense that everything has gone into this.
“Gestalt” can mean form or shape, and the idea of a whole seems particularly apt here. Six tracks, each with their own character, become something quite sensational together. The more you listen, the more you get out of it. Plaindrifter have made a second album that rewards every bit of the attention it asks for.
