Album Review: ERAAS – Initiation

Brooklyn duo ERAAS return with their second album, Initiation. Though, at eight songs-long it’s an awkward length – not quite an LP, but meatier than an EP. Like their self-titled debut, most of the track titles are snappy and abstract – summed up in a word sometimes. While the music is abstract, the tracks are certainly not snappy. They continually linger in the darkness and cramped spaces of your mind until well after they’ve completed their sinister trails.

Initiation is a well-planned extension of their first record; released last year. It’s still got plenty of epic moments suspended from a ghostly, uncertain atmosphere, but there are some hidden intricacies to balance everything out. ‘Looking Glass/Pettitbon’ opens the record with a bass-heavy undergrowth and intense beat. Paired with an indistinct murmuring in the distance, it’s like something out of a horror film with the unknowing victim attempting to make their elaborate escape.

‘The Dream’ has a twisting beat that nurtures the track’s stalking bass line; which sways towards a spooked-up 80s electro feel, albeit with a dash of wonky Kraftwerk streamed through it. Listening to it in its entirety, Initiation does feel a bit like some sort of test. It fluffs up different ambiences on its heady voyage through the unknown. Making you feel uneasy and tense at points, Robert Toher and Austin Stawiarz have produced a collection of expanding sounds, which concisely compress against one another.

‘Circling’ brings a calmer mood, with swirling synths doing their rounds and twinkling wind chime-like noises adding a delicate, shivering touch. While the monotonous drive conjured in ‘Above’ doesn’t show as much excitement as some of the other songs, ‘Splitting’ is a prime example of the new intricacies ERAAS have kindled. With several textures – dragged out lyrics, carefully placed drums and a moody underlying vibration – it’s been well mapped out.

But, it’s not all creepy. As well as the darkly driven forces heading up most the record, there are dashes of hip-hop influences in ‘Guardian/Descent’ and ‘Old Magic’, which see stark beats injected into proceedings. Casting some light into the sheltered tone of Initiation, they’re uplifting and show ERRAS can do more than just creep everyone out. Initiation is a winning follow-up with its slight shift in tone pushing their music up another step with a more convincing conviction in the eerie, distinct layers.

– Hayley Fox