I had to snatch up this debut EP for a simple reason: The Oldest House, all of the song titles and the cover art are obvious references to a Remedy game, namely Control. A dumb reason, yes, as a reference does not make something good in itself, but one can always hope that the creator takes something away from a work as unique as Control is. At first, I felt bamboozled as “Objects of Power” is a slow build of a song that does not accomplish much in its runtime. Sure, the promo sheet states that the sole creator of this EP, A.M. (vocalist of Aversio Humanitatis), conceived the music as one long piece that is supposed to be like a “huge wall of static that is creeping slowly towards you.” Fortunately for me, he did not do a good job of that as the rest of the EP is on the more dynamic side of sludge metal that I have heard. Apart from the interlude of “Interdimensional Mold”, which goes for a well deserved pause from the static wall with 80’s dark retrowave synths à la Stranger Things, there is meat on the bones of this EP.
The main course moves through well done tempo changes, effective use of droning sludge in the vein of Primitive Man, chanted vocals, dynamically written doom metal, and blackened death metal bursts that remind me of Nightfell or Worm with some fuzzy Black Sabbath stoner riffs that are par for the course. The Oldest House uses all of these influences well to create a varied EP that is easy to spin and enjoy. Likewise, Control was a mass of new weird writing that used brutalist architecture with dashes of psychedelic color to switch things up, dancing to its own tune. The Oldest House is off to a good start by trying to build something similarly, that is far away from the static impression the first song of this EP gives off. I am interested in seeing if this can translate well in a full-length debut, as nailing down the pacing of a 25 minute EP naturally should require less work. Still, here’s me hoping I will be placing an eventual full release by The Oldest House on my list of favorites in the future.
