Album Review

Eric Ezra – ‘Amphibian’ [Album Review]

Saturated in bleeding waves of sound akin to an underground mining process, ‘Amphibian’ exudes secret feelings of thrilling dread.

Published

2 weeks ago

04/22/2024

Randy Radic

Eric Ezra ‘Amphibian’ album artwork

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Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Eric Ezra released his album, Amphibian, at the end of 2023. The album sees Ezra taking his sound in a new direction, that of electronic music rather than his previous indie-rock leanings.

Speaking about the album, Ezra says, “The album ‘Amphibian’ is just a collection of bangers I wrote. There is some conceptual significance about the first track being called ‘Amphibian’ because it sounds like a monster walking through a swamp but other than that it’s just a lot of music. The song titles are just associations with concepts that songs sounded like to me.”

Entry points on the 10-track album embrace the title track, an atmospheric synth-rock tune riding a pulsating rhythm topped by shoegaze guitars and dark, swirling synths. In the solo/outro, Ezra’s guitar depicts lysergic washes merged with tangs of surf-rock.

Heavy with industrial shadows in the intro, “Automation” flows into clotted layers of sepulchral sounds, at once eerily ghostly and thick with visions of an austere, digital future, isolating and hovering like a murky storm.

Thrumming with ponderous gloom, “Captured” flows into fluctuating synths and frenetic, luminous textures, revealing the vibrating momentum of buzzing colors, like hornets swarming angrily. “Death” opens on emerging, elegiac tones, rippling with funereal overlays. Imminent and shuddering with urgency, the harmonics coil and glide wickedly.

The requiem-like intro of “Tides” combined with a thumping rhythm infuses the tune with a vast primitive power. When the buzzsaw guitars enter, the harmonics assume edgy, subliminal flashes of metallic consistency.