Hills of Elysium

"...Tonight’s lineup
featured two Seattle bands fronted by women. Both of these bands were fuckin’ amazing and truly unique in their own way. The first band, Hills of Elysium, comprised of Ryan Eaton (Drums), Matthew Herrin (Bass), September
Garland (Vocals), and Vibeke Stolan (Lead Guitar) blew me away. Garland is a firecracker on stage; this chick never stopped moving! Hills of Elysium are one of those few bands that can hold your interest from start to finish. This
band is definitely unstoppable. Combine the edgy riffs with a grooving bassline, toss in some incredible, energy-driven vocals,
and you have Hills of Elysium. September’s voice is constantly changing. Imagine a person with schizophrenia singing and getting angrier by the personality change—it was fucking great! I can see this band rising to the top in the Seattle music scene. I would
definitely recommend that you check them out.... Now I can see why Hills of Elysium is getting some love from KISW. Very topnotch stuff! I’ll be looking forward to seeing more from these guys." - Exotic Underground Magazine January 2007

AUGUSTA, GA - One of the worst possible elements for a (hack) music journalist to have in his life is a large contingent of friends who also know so much about music that the weeping they experience at the end of “Once” is probably due to the knowledge that their life would be much better represented by “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Pity and social awkwardness aside, I find myself making the all-too-common mistake of asking my friends their opinion on an album that I’m about to review. Granted, they have to give a gut-check response based on only one or two songs, but I already picked up on the similarities between Portal and Plague Bringer, or Witchcraft and Blue Cheer, thank you very much—god-forsaken burnouts, all. I never wise up to it either, which is apparently why I asked three of my supposedly learned buds what they thought of “Cigadent,” the debut full-length from Hills of Elysium. True to form, the first name that chirped trippingly off of their tongues, in a too-perfect-to-be-accidental puff of Marlboro Light smoke, was Otep.

That said, let me be clear: Hills of Elysium is not Otep. Singer September Garland is more aggressive, incisive and—yeah, I know Shamaya has performed on Def Poetry Jam—a more disciplined and creative writer than her nu-metal counterpart; check out the greed-and-gluttony-bashing tirade of “Tax the Obese” or the head-nodding grisliness of “Autopsy Results of a Redheaded Slutwhorebitch” for prime examples of the kind of hammer-meets-kneecap free verse that would make J.R. Hayes shudder. Not to mention that the instrumental contingent of HoE could out-groove 90% of industrial/gothic/ post-grunge pretenders from Seattle to Brooklyn. Bassist Matthew Herrin and drummer Valdemar Huguet lay down everything from a throbbing, denim-clad war beat on “Masturbation by the Mouthful” to greasy metalcore on “Bullets vs. Bullhorns,” while guitarist Jessica Lane (joined this past year by the Norwegian-born Eljae) is equally adept at churning out simple, tense hardcore riffs as she is at peppering the songs with fleeting lead fills.

While Garland’s banshee shriek is right up there with the best of ‘em, she particularly shines when putting her formidable vox to good use, crooning and belting her way through “Planet Full of Strangers” and closer “Ghosting.” And as good a writer as she is, we can do without the re-hashed scene-bitching of “Pretty Pink Plastic Poser”—when every other track is a lyrical standout, it only makes the lesser quality of a throwaway like that more obvious.

These are, however, but petty gripes. “Cigadent” plays like an audio chapbook of cultural warfare, fueled by foam residue on shattered beer bottles and blood wrung from discarded cigarette butts. It may not ignite a revolution, but at least we’ve got ourselves a soundtrack.

-Joshua Ruffin
12/03/08 - Metro Spirit

I’ve listened to my fair share of punk, thrash, and hardcore bands over the years, from bands full of eager teenagers with sloppy fundamentals playing in community centers to watching talented acts with their neck-shredding guitarists and double-bass-pounding drummers perform at dangerous decibel levels. Yet, I will be the first to admit that these are not my native genres: while I respect the great groups highly and talk at an intelligent level about these sounds, I absorb my angst, fear, paranoia, and anger through other musical sources. Honestly, I listen because I supremely enjoy viewing the technical prowess that the best bands in these arenas evince (as well as hearing the resultant music).

So, when engaging the music of Hills Of Elysium on their debut record Cigadent, I feel slightly unqualified, mostly because I feel a bit uncomfortable with the ferocity and fervency of their lyrical content. I simply am unable to relate to it, even as I recognize that they are quite good at what they do and overtly display their immediate influences (Jack Off Jill and Marilyn Manson come to mind) with great attention to detail. The songs themselves alternate between driving pounding gothic rock tracks and driving double-time punk anthems, creating in my mind’s eye a glorious image of a festering, teeming crowd of fans as the mosh passionately and work the pit into a furious circle of barely controlled rage. Led by a lead singer whose voice spends time as a sultry croon before morphing into a painful shriek, the band’s music is at once profane and blistering, while never quite going over-the-top with the shock factor. And maybe the ultimate source of my discomfort is that this music is unsettling to me: I would be fine with a cheesy act who’s vainly trying to prove how edgy they are, but Hills Of Elysium seem to be the real deal, complete with an aggressive female lead and the intense gentlemen who provide her music. Cigadent is not for the easily offended, and I’m sure that the band would take that as a compliment. - Dryvetyme Onlyne

.....What lands the show in this weekend’s docket of wrock is, chiefly, the blunt, punkish goth/horror rock from Seattle band Hills of Elysium and their wonderfully assaulting songs, like “Tax the Obese” and “Pretty Pink Plastic Poser.”

HoE’s bewitching and brutal lead singer September Garland lays it all out over frankly a cleanly distorted sonic backdrop, oscillating from a matter-of-fact conversational style to blood-curdling scream to shouting punk manifesto and back. Just like that.

FRIDAY, NOV. 7

HILLS OF ELYSIUM w/ Your Divine Tragedy, Broken Entry and Iron Spyder at 7 p.m., Nov. 7 at the Charleston Music Venue, 333 Callow Ave. in Bremerton. All ages, bar w/ ID, $5. - North Kitsap Herald