“Outlier EP”
Label: Blacksound Records
Release Date: May 5th, 2014
Rating: 3.5/5
Eken Is Dead is a 4 piece band from Los Angeles, California. After listening to all 6 songs a few times over, I’m still having trouble fully putting a genre to them. They have a lot of punk aspects to them along with hard rock, bits of hardcore and at times, pieces of metal. So, I will classify them as “whatever mood you are currently in” music.
This is my introduction to this band (thanks Alle Cramer for asking if I wanted to review their album) and I have to say, I’m definitely digging it. For me, every song is a solid piece of work and I wish this would have been a 11 track full length instead of an EP.
The song I do need to mention (which is my favorite off of the album) is “Trained To Hate”. It is 2 minutes and 30 seconds of pure energy and I feel that if I was about to fight someone, this is the song I would pick to be the background music. The aggression and intensity really shines from 0 seconds in all the way to the end.
I can’t leave this review without also mentioning that they end the EP with a really awesome acoustic version for the song “At Any Cost” and it is beautifully done! Chris’ vocals are amazing on this track and the instruments are perfectly balanced for a well recorded song.
Definitely check out this band and they are currently touring around the Southwest part of the country so hit them up live if they come to your town. I do believe that this record will be hitting iTunes and a few of the other outlets pretty soon or just message the band and see if you can buy the album directly from them.
