The Smashing Skull Sessions

The Smashing Skull Sessions is a podcast, interview and review website, set up to showcase and support the underground rock and metal scenes. Our goal is to promote artists and bands from right across the globe, giving them another voice and another forum in which to get their music out to a greater audience. We also have a new review series, The Review Room, which is another unique way of getting bands and artists some extra coverage and promotion

Long distance Calling - Eraser

"Eraser is a monumental and majestic slab of instrumental music that pushes boundaries and explores the gulf between moments of euphoric, guitar-soaring highs and dark, sullen riffs and percussions. Consistency, with the natural ability to experiment and evolve has made Germany’s Long Distance Calling one of the best bands in the business, and Eraser is just another step on the road to perfection"

Long distance Calling are back, even though they were never gone! Eraser is about to be dropped to the masses this week, and to be honest, I’m in a state of indescribable rapture after spending the last couple of weeks listening to this masterpiece on repeat. It has become the soundtrack to my summer, but even bigger than that, it could well become the soundtrack to a movement and a realisation that we as humans are the foremost architects of this earths unravelling. Eraser is two things. Firstly, it’s a call to arms so to speak, a wake-up call, and a stark realisation that some of the most amazing animals on our planet are on the brink of extinction. A heavy-hearted topic for sure and one that should resonate with most of us, as we walk this earth, leaving our deep sunken footprints on the sand.

Secondly however, Eraser is a monumental and majestic slab of instrumental music that pushes boundaries and explores the gulf between moments of euphoric, guitar- soaring highs and dark, sullen riffs and percussions. Long Distance Calling have never released a poor album, in my opinion. They have a discography that warrants the greatest of respect, just take for example the heavy and hugely melodic Avoid The Light, right through to the inspiring and uplifting Boundless. Consistency, with the natural ability to experiment and evolve has made Germany’s Long Distance Calling one of the best bands in the business, and Eraser is just another step on the road to perfection.

Every track on this record is a heavy hitter, that needs to be tracked and traced by the richter scale! The magnitude and amplitude found in tracks like Blades showcase the measured and technical ferocity that Long Distance Calling have at their disposal. Deep, cutting riffs erupt under swirling solo passages, all smothered in molten magma and rumbling drums. This may well be LDC’s heaviest release to date, the guitars sound menacing, the bass is bad ass, and the drums could very easily cause an avalanche when they find their rhythm.

Each track depicts an animal on Eraser, and a track like Kamila suits the mighty gorilla to a tee, with its broad-chested, chugs and beats. The guitars are super heavy here, but the beauty about LDC is that there’s always a hook and a melody that ropes it all together. Even through the more serene moments of the track there’s an air of power and ferocity just waiting to be unleashed, and it’s done so with a coolness and a calmness that only these guys can pull off.

I couldn’t possibly do a track-by-track review of this album as there is so much to unravel and digest. Needless to say, there is not a filler in sight. Tracks like 500 Years bring with it wailing guitars and double kicked drums that pulverise and punish, while the majestic albatross is adorned and revered with the herculean Giants Leaving.
Blood Honey brings with it swarms of fizzing energy that manoeuvres through off-beat rhythms and into a slumbrous bass and piano trance, while Landless King brings the funk and the swagger, like a mammoth sea giant, as it glides and breaks the ocean’s surface.

But I want to keep the best till last on this review, and it’s a track that breaks down every musical barrier and arrangement that exists in rock music, in order to compose and invent this magical track that meanders and ambles through velvet pathways, soaking in sweet saxophones and sophisticated basslines. Sloth is one of those heavenly tracks that improvises and impulsively draws you into the world of this restful mammal as he hangs upside down within his canopied rainforest, his home. Rich Sax solos overlap and caress the spiralling Floydesque guitars as the music is pulled slowly along by the ponderous and trance inducing pace of the track. It’s a composition that I have played over and over again, enjoying it all the more each time. Track of the year? Absolutely!

Long Distance Calling have penned an album that cements their place at the top of the food chain. I can’t say any more than that really. I witnessed them at Dunk this year and it only reaffirmed my love and respect for what they have already achieved as a band, and ultimately what has yet to come. 10/10

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