Review: Eurkuh “Not at All”

A solid effort from what seems to be a one-man band from Australia, the mysterious Eurkuh take us on a 19-minute black metal tour of his native New South Wales.

Kicking the EP off with a screaming crow sample seems an odd choice until you realise Eurkuh is from Wakka Wakka, or ‘the land of crows’, which gives more reference to the album artwork – a crow with a goat’s head. After the corvine greeting, raspy guitars and distorted arpeggios gradually hove into view before whipping drums and dry, barking vocals kick in around the 1-minute mark. Despite being black metal, the lyrics are actually fairly discernible, which deserves credit in itself, and are not overbearing in the mix. The drumming may be a tad primitive and the production unpolished, but the artistically composed melodies and riffs are impressive, and combined with the swell and release tension building, the EP starts promisingly.

The brooding atmosphere carries over nicely into second track ‘Not At All’ and takes on a different element altogether with the ominous bass solo near the 2-minute mark, which builds a foundation for the riffs to come. Third track Entfesseln offers more pensive breakdowns than a Cliff Notes book and segues nicely into final track Recoiled in Horror, a tale of murdering a friend and burying them under your floorboards, and if that’s not black metal enough for you I don’t know what is.

Minor issues like the production quality can be overlooked because of how well this EP is composed, the way the imaginative riffs bob and weave between each other, how each element (bar the drumming, maybe) is used adroitly, and how nothing is overdone or relied upon too much. Hopefully we’ll see more of the same from Eurkuh sooner rather than later.

Release date: January 6th, 2021

https://www.facebook.com/Eurkuh.Official/
https://www.instagram.com/eurkuh/