East Of The Wall – Ressentiment (2010)

Like a good wine, East Of The Wall has only been getting better with time. With “Ressentiment” the band not only improves over their perplexingly brilliant “Farmer's Almanac”, but they take things to a whole new dimension. The main addition to “Ressentiment” is the use of vocals to adorn the bands highly textured musical compositions. The vocals are partly because of the merger of Biclops and them.

East Of The Wall’s brand of music is of particular interest to music connoisseurs that can greatly appreciate all the technical powers behind this band. Every single song is masterfully crafted to perplex the listener and make him have to listen to the songs a few times before fully digesting them. Then you move on to the next song and the process begins again.

‘Ressentiment” features the guitar and bass guitar wizardry that all the fans of the band expect, and when paired with tight drumming and powerful screams we don’t think it can get better than this. The musical complexity behind a release as rich as this one has made us listen to this album for quite a while before actually writing a review about it since it has so many sides and elements to this release that need to be enjoyed.

We are not big fans of the harsh vocals in this release, but they do add extra depth to the band’s music. We are not quite sure how much of the members of East Of The Wall did contribute to this album (since it was intended to be a Biclops release), but it still has the Post-Metal/Proggy edge that we enjoy from the band.

The power behind the intricacies of the songs in “Ressentiment” is easily noticeable and the vocals do highlight this aggressiveness, but they could have been cut from the final product and we would still be looking at a very solid release.

Out of the countless Post-Metal/ Post-whatever bands emerging from the American scene, we have to say that Biclops/East Of The Wall is one of the best out there. With their combination of musical wizardry and craftsmanship, we can’t think of another band that can pull off such interesting and complex songs and make them seem easy.  

“Ressentiment” is a highly recommended release for anybody interesting in listening to great songs that are both complex and catchy at the same time. We can’t wait to hear what the actual East Of The Wall will come up once they actually write/record their ‘own’ release in 2011.

Release: July 20th, 2010

Country: USA