Digipack. Swedish four-piece Elden will release their second album, Nostromo, as their label debut through Fuzzorama Records on Jan. 24. If you think you know what you’re getting just by the imprint involved, two things: One, kudos on your savvy and careful eye. Two, you’re wrong. While Fuzzorama, the aptly-named outlet helmed by ?rebro fuzz kingpins Truckfighters, is known for doling out wonderfully hairy riffage and heavy rock groovies from the likes of Valley of the Sun, We Hunt Buffalo, Truckfighters themselves, Asteroid, Deville and a host of others, Elden are on an entirely more pointed tack. On the nine-song/41-minute Nostromo, they show some flashes of Queens of the Stone Age influence in the post-intro leadoff cut “Sail and Savour,” the subsequent “Anubis” and maybe elsewhere here and there, but it’s filtered through a post-Mastodon modern progressive metal mindset, rife with winding riffs, a consuming largesse and persistent melody that holds regardless of how heavy the surroundings get. And by the time the title-track comes around on side B, following the particularly atmospheric “Heavy Rain” and leading into the lumber-unto-onslaught “Creatures Follows,” the surroundings get pretty gosh darn heavy.
