Ephel Duath

Pain Remixes The Known

[2/5]

Deftly interweaving black/death metal, jazz fusion and progressive rock, Italian quintet Ephel Duath released two back-to-back awesome albums, 2003’s The Painter’s Palette and 2005’s Pain Necessary To Know, before stripping down to a trio and reportedly mapping out an even wilder direction for their next full-length. Here’s hoping Pain Remixes The Known, which finds electronic composer and sometimes-Bill Laswell collaborator Eraldo Bernocchi “deconstructing” Pain Necessary, isn’t that direction. Serviceable enough as a routine ambient/drum-n-bass collection, the disc sucks the danger and energy from its source material, although for patient listeners, there are some exciting moments where the guitars and screams crackle through the sub-bass din. But when you’ve already heard the Dillinger Escape Plan, Between The Buried And Me and others using electronics far more successfully over an entire album, what’s the point of waiting around? (EARACHE; earache.com) Aaron Burgess