Formed in the mid-1990's, Oakland's Eldopa set out to fuse the manic intensity of hardcore with the brutal power of extreme metal. The Complete Recordings culls their 1332 album, as well as various live, single, and demo tracks for a comprehensive look at the band's career. After the breakup of the band, the members went their separate ways and now reside in such groups as Watch Them Die and Kalas.
Bassist Andy Branton, guitarist/vocalist Greg Valencia, guitarist/vocalist Brian Ward, and drummer Sean Tyler certainly knew how to churn out meaty riffs that at time bordered on both doom and punk, while frantic rhythms flailed about and the dual vocals of Valencia & Ward had the ability to scare the paint off any house. Many of the songs here are fairly short, but the best are the longer, more doom laden pieces like "The Burning" and "1332", each containing plenty of thunderous guitar dirges and screaming vocals. Fans of intense hardcore with plenty of breakdowns will drool over the manic sounds of "Clawing at the Walls", a song that also features plenty of metal moments as well.
While many of the tunes are duplicated here in demo and live formats, this is still a pretty brutal collection of a short lived band that definitely had some potential.
Track Listing
1) 1332
2) Slave
3) Headache
4) Wrong End
5) The Burning
6) Decomposing
7) Clawing at the Walls
8) Infected
9) The Calm
10) Ruined
11) Someone Saw God
12) Dormant
13) Skinless
14) Ruined
15) Headache
16) Bloody Knuckles
17) Someone Saw God-demo
18) Decomposing-demo
19) Ed-demo
20) Repercussion-demo
21) Skinless-live
22) Repercussion-live
23) Slave-live
24) Dormant-live
25) Someone Saw God-demo
26) The Calm-demo
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
