The Summary Judgment Reviews:
Title: Share
Artist: Eternal Elysium
Label: Meteor City
Release Date: 3/5/02

Rating: 5 Skulls
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    • Reviewed by Redwolff (5/22/02):
    Have you heard these guys? Have you heard of these guys? Oh, you should. You really should.

    I hardly know where to start with this album. Like a stowaway fish poised to unleash itself on the fragile ecosystem of the Sea of Japan, heavy American music has inundated Japan for years (see Loudness, for example)-- but instead of causing widespread panic and destruction, Japan has spat it back at us improved and stronger than ever. How do they do that? It's as if they came back to us with Double-Secret sauce on our own Big Macs - you didn't think they could be improved, but there it is.

    "Elysium" is an ancient Greek concept roughly translated as "paradise" - not exactly heaven, but as close as the ancients would get. So Eternal Elysium, in the very name of the band, reveal their Western influence. However, this album was recorded at Studio Zen, so you know that it's not going to be a straight copy of American music. In Japan, the hand can be used as a knife, but it took a Ginsu to cut this crazy album. The band's influences seem to rest on a bed of Black Sabbath and include Cream, BOC, Deep Purple, a little AIC-type grunge, some Santana-esque latin beats and a touch of experimental Pink Floyd (especially in the last song, "Fairies Never Sleep," which I just can't get all the way through). This blend has resulted in a dense and sometimes punishing experience that's hard to categorize. They probably fit best into the stoner metal category but there are touches, like having both a drummer and a percussionist in the band and the urge-to-air-guitar opening riffs on the third track, "Movements and Vibes," that go beyond typical stoner metal into something more diversified and rich.

    The bottom line is these guys got into my head somehow and created exactly what I'd like to hear. Now I need to track down their first album, Spriritualized D.
    5 out of 5

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