Eskimo Callboy are a new band on me (despite their seven previous releases), the first time I encountered them being during Wacken World Wide… where my initial reaction was “what the bloody hell am I watching?!”. In a good way, I hasten to add. Looking like a bunch of rejects from the bad end of the 1980s, they know how to put on a live show, so I was curious to hear how their new material held up without the insane live energy.
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As soon as opener “Hypa Hypa” starts, there’s that confusing moment where you wonder if you’ve chucked on a dance anthems album. However, this soon gives way to something pretty heavy before the track just bounces back and forth between something you’d bop to, and something you’d kill people to. Where there are a handful of “fusion” bands who blend these styles, Eskimo Callboy have started off by letting the two styles show their differences. After a few listens, the pattern comes through – at the “bass drop” moment where the dance music crowds would lose their minds, they chuck in the growled vocals and guitars… and the metal crowd lose their minds. All this and a maddeningly catchy pop anthem chorus that’s cheesy enough to cause lactose intolerance in a Eurovision audience.
Four of the remaining tracks are a little less bonkers, following a more familiar formula of a dancey intro before the metal overlays it, and the track continues with the two playing off each other rather than competing. This isn’t to say you’ve heard it all before. Eskimo Callboy really push the limits of both styles, with the metal being heavy and the dance being… whatever people who like dance would say about catchy dance tunes.
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Oh, but then they go and throw another curveball. The final track, “Prism”, features Tobias Rauscher. He’s a phenomenally talented fingerstyle guitarist (probably most famous for “Still Awake“) and this song gives him a chance to show off his skills. Unlike many songs you hear featuring a guest artist, he doesn’t just fly in and drop off a solo. It sounds as if the band wrote this with Rauscher very much in mind and the end result is an unusual one to finish off the EP… and yet a great choice as it shows them in another light.
MMXX is an interesting introduction to a new act (in my case) and certainly contains all the “restrained energy” the band had pent up as a result of not being able to tour over the summer.
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