Becoming

Metal, I’ve liked it since I first heard it when someone at my school introduced me to it. Before then all I had heard was radio rock and roll and some golden oldies that would be played by my parents and uncle when I was in the car with them. From that first time listening to that first metal song I was hooked. Here was music that was so very different than the clean, clear, happy songs that I had been listening to. What I was now hearing was music that had an edge to it, it was loud, it was fast, and it felt like it was speaking to me with such intense emotions in the lyrics. Without knowing why at the time of listening to this new type of music I wanted to scream along with the vocals and thrash my body around with the instruments, it was exhilarating.
This is exactly how I was feeling when listening to Becoming by Elisium for the first time. “Intro”, the first track on this 6 track album brought back all those memories of my first time listening to metal. The textures of the vocals being sung by Nate Compton are strong and full of emotion to the point of being contagious. He packs a lot of emotion into what he is singing and it’s clearly heard in his voice as well as the lyrics being sung. Even on track 4 “Safety Dance”, a remake of the song released by Men With Hats in 1983 and is one of my top favorite songs, Nate Compton was able to make it sound good while keeping the fun-ness of the song in it.
My only grip about this album Becoming is that they only gave me 6 songs. All 6 of the songs are very well played with a even mixture in the instruments and vocals. With only being a 3 member group one instrument could easily have taken the vocal point in the songs but while I listened to the songs on this album I would hear the drums then the guitar and then the bass but none of them stepped on each other. Elisium’s album Becoming sounds like what metal was when it was making a name for itself by breaking away from what was considered radical. And yet with having this sound of being old school metal, they also have their own sound that keeps the songs from sounding dated. I really enjoyed listening to this album, even with the new take on “Safety Dance”, Elisium needs more than 6 songs on this album.