ELEPHANT9 — Walk the Nile (review)

ELEPHANT9 — Walk the Nile album cover Album · 2010 · Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Sean Trane
Second album from this Norwegian instrumental Hammond-driven power trio, much in the same line of their debut, not least in the similar artwork department, despite being much less in the JR/F mode than before. Still depending on Storlokken’s keyboard madness on two of prog’s most legendary instruments, the Hammond organ and the Fender Rhodes electric piano (much-under used here), the group’s music explodes with power from your speakers and grabs you by the gut as you’re literally hypnotized by the generous growls of the organ, pushed by the powerful and driving (but not always refined) drumming from Lofthus and the rollicking and frolicking bass from Eilertsen.

Much like their previous album, the spectrum is relatively varied, ranging from an ELP-like workout Fugi Fonix, Hardcore Oriental (well I wouldn’t call it far-east, either) and Aviation, to the much-slower intimate piece with the Hammond drones of the awesome almost-ambient and nightmarish title track, to a jammy-jazzy Habanera Rocket (don’t ask;o))) and the over-powering closer. As a 70’s vintage sounds freak, you’ll find Walk The Nile a rather irresistible as it will flatter you eardrums into submissions by sending tingue of sonic orgasms directly into your frontal lobes.

Unfortunately, despite a fairly-wide spectrum and always enthralling power, what lacks in this album (and in retrospect to their debut) is a different colour, or an instrument to add and answers Storlokken’s keyboards (something that also plagued his “mentor” Emerson), maybe a guitarist or a wind player. Indeed, once the opening pleasure of discovering the album, by the fifth spin, it sort of becomes a little saturating to listen to it in a full session, because it’s a bit too much of the same, because Storlokken doesn’t switch enough instruments. The other remark I have is that the drumming might have been a bit more subtle at times (not as loud as well) and better recorded, especially at the start of the closing John Tinnick track, the only non-Storlokken composition.

While this album figured in my top 10 releases of 2010 (which is quite a compliment), it’s not likely to make a lasting impression throughout the still-long decade to come, so I wouldn’t call the album essential. But this doesn’t make any less worthy of acquisition, if only for the sake of the odd musical orgasmic jolt you’ll enjoy. Happy premature intellectual ejaculation.
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