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The Moscow instrumental art-metal outfit ENDNAME was formed in 2007 by guitarists Sergo Meshidze and Sergei Kaplin, with drummer Dmitry Musatov (former members of local bands SOULAR and ROUT[e]). After making their debut with a four-song EP entitled Dissociation in 2008, the three were joined by Sergei Podgornyi on bass and keyboards (formerly SUR and BARABANDA). In April 2009, the quartet took a much-deserved break with their participation in the Moscow Doom Festival where they shared stage with Mourning Beloveth (Ireland), Mournful Congregation (Australia), The Prophecy (UK) and Looking For Dawn (Canada). In point of fact, their music is more rooted in works by forefathers of post-metal genre Neurosis and Isis than in old-school doom metal, and often compared to Chicago’s instrumentalists Pelican. ENDNAME is currently experimenting with noise and ambient textures: the band’s drummer is also involved with his solo project SOMNY rooted in experimental ambient and techno.
ENDNAME's official site and MyspaceMusic page.
EndName / Dreams of a Cyclops (2009) / CD $11.00
With their first official full-length album, ENDNAME take a serious step to develop their own style of dense instrumental post-doom-sludge metal with electronic accents and a generally bleak atmosphere. Dreams Of A Cyclops proves that the band already knows how to rock hard, but it also shows off their feel for dynamics and for less-aggressive, quieter ways of getting their point across. The band's songwriting approach based on the layered guitars and the melodic alternation between major and minor-key riffing is expansive and massive, but it also includes a more effective background use of synthesizers and noises, as well as the introduction of alien textures – like percussion or didjeridu tribal acoustics – to electrified sonic palette. The tracks tend to be on the long side – between six and thirteen minutes apiece – and in addition to that, they are clearly meant to flow together as part of a start-to-finish listening experience. The album will likely please most fans of guitar-saturated brand of experimental-art-metal who tend to esteem the absence of vocals. (6 tracks - 55 min.)
PRESS CLIPS
"This is a very rich and diverse album that draw on many different influences, many whom I have a hard time placing. The music is really fascinating... Dreams Of A Cyclops would clearly be of most interest to fans of Pelican, 5ive, Neurosis, and other bands of approximately that style. Additionally, appreciating soundscape music shouldn't be underestimated as an incentive. Moreover, since this is a band who hold a high standard of musicianship it might even appeal to many outside that fanbase. Being so unusual as they are, they might even deserve to label their own separate fanbase. I sincerely hope that the Eastern European origins of this album won't force this band out of history because, to my ears at least, this band deserves to be acknowledged right alongside the best of it's kind." – by Arnstein H. Pettersen of Doom-metal.com (Norway) (October 2009).
"The first album from this Moscow-based instrumental space-metal group has the heavy prog feel but it's injected into a super heavy sludge/doom weightiness that often sounds like a kind of stately prog-doom. These guys have been compared to Pelican a bit, and there's definitely some of that sound going on here, but EndName add a bunch of their own eccentric sounds and turn it into something uniquely theirs, a mix of instrumental King Crimson -influenced prog, winding doom riffing, space rock atmospherics and quirky electronic soundscaping that puts an emphasis on heavy, hypnotic grooves, incorporating lots of synthesizer, Frippy guitar work, tribal percussion and even didgeridoo into their odd art-metal. The proggy math-doom workout of opener 'Inception' goes from stuttering Meshuggah -like riffage and cascading sheets of processed guitar into a repetitious, sinister doom metal riff driven by a lurching angular rhythm and constant harmonic squeals. 'North' is slow pounding doom metal mixed with symphonic synth strings and pounding industrial clang, a lumbering cinematic doom instrumental that opens up into weirdly sunny melodic passages, soaring FX-heavy guitar solos, and some baroque Ren Faire keyboards towards the end that makes this sound like some weird proggy 80's doom. The fourteen minute 'Eclipse' has Floydian guitar atmospherics flowing into an epic 80's metal/cop show groove with propulsive drums and melodic metallic riffing, a killer hook at the center of it, breaking of into tribal hand-drum percussion and atmospheric droning; halfway into it, the track starts to sound like older Pelican jamming with a drum circle before slipping back into that killer quasi-disco groove, then gets all spacey at the end with odd countrified guitars and more hand percussion. Heavy stop-start riffing dominates 'Beyond The Scope' with an almost Helmet / Gore style groove, heavy angular sludge rock with creepy spacey lead guitar. 'Dissolution' opens with delayed didgeridoo drones and spacey synth drift, a deep cosmic ambience streaked with backwards guitar, chimes, buried electronic pulse, and synth strings, a total krautrock-inspired dronescape a la Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze, an eerie descending melody gradually returning to the ominous didgeridoo buzz. And closer 'Dissociation' returns to the massive processed slabs of progged out sludge metal with another lumbering stop/start riff and more sheets of FX-heavy guitar, crushing plodding drone-riffage and swirling cosmic synths merging into a slow and propulsive groove, the drums a mechanical tick-tock pulse, riffs constantly changing and chugging, the drums blasting off into volleys of ferocious double bass later on, joined by percussive clang and crashing cymbals, mutating into a frenzy of spaced out thrash metal riffing at the very end." – by Adam Wright-Carmean of Crucial Blast (USA) (January 2010).
"EndName has created one of the most unique and impressive releases to be heard in a long, long time. Dreams Of A cyclops is a diverse, heavy guitar driven journey. The main influence heard througout the songs is sludge and traditional doom but the band also seems to be expirementing with harsh noise and dark atmospheres compliments of well arranged keyboards that fit within EndName's already well layered and heavy sound. Another aspect of this bands originality is that each song is completly instrumental at first i wasn't sure about these styles of music being blended together in a completly instrumental but the band pulls it off triumpantly and i think adding vocals would take away from the bands amazing sound and execution of the songs. Fans of heavy guitar driven rock/doom mixed with harsh atmosphere should defintly check out EndName for a wild journey." – by Patrick Schroeder of Winter Torment (USA) (February 2010).
The album was also reviewed at: Encyclopaedia Metallum (Canada), Metalizer (Russia), Metal Library (Russia), Your Reality. Free Entrance /¹7/ (Russia), Dark City (Russia), Rockcor (Russia), Monochrom-Cracked (Austria), Sea Of Tranquility (USA), Neformat's interview with EndName (Ukraine), Far From Moscow (USA), Metal Zone (Ukraine), DisAgreement (Luxembourg), Neformat (ukraine).
| Title | Media | Price |
| EP-CDR | N/A | |
| CD | $11.00 |
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