Four years since the release of their third full-length album Rekreatur, Equilibrium are back with Erdentempel which is perhaps the band’s strongest album to date. It has all the makings of a fantastic album and a true epic, delivering one strong track after another and barely leaving the listener time to take a breath between songs before launching into another earworm of a track.
An early favourite is Uns’rer Flöten Klang, which is an energetic number that will swiftly bring a smile to your face from how utterly jolly it sounds and the ending is phenomenal, with it almost feeling like you’re riding into some epic quest when the full band kicks in for one final burst of energy. Another especially striking track is Wirtshaus Gaudi, the band’s current single, which is an Oktoberfest inspired tongue-in-cheek number. It’s a track that sounds like it’s made for a live environment and although it’s a relatively short song in comparison to the rest of the album tracks, there are plenty of opportunities for some crazy dancing and moving about, which can never be a bad thing.
One of the good things about Erdentempel is how it slowly winds things down as the album comes to a close, with Wellengang more of a slower number – but no less memorable, with a profuse amount of melodies sticking in your head for all of the right reasons – and The Unknown Episode (which is actually the band’s first song outside of their native German language!) is the perfect way to bring the album to a satisfying close.
Whilst it can be said that Equilibrium have never put out a bad release, it’s clear that Erdentempel is a new high for the band and will surely be an album that will go down an absolute storm.
9/10
