Elder : Through Zero
Elder since their earliest days have gone through periods of expansion and contraction. They have always been a band ripe with ambition, with the latent seeds of their later explicitly prog rock years apparent in their earliest records, but one that also wisely tends to pause on the threshold, using one album to master what another album introduced. Whether this means you find yourself gravitating toward the albums of mastery like Dead Roots Stirring, Reflections of a Floating World or Innate Passage or ones of the creative eruptions like their self-titled debut, Lore or Omens is a matter of taste, whether you prefer the lightning flash or the fine sculpted form.
Through Zero by this count places itself as yet another eruption, this time formally folding in the expansive and well-knotted prog pursued by frontman Nick DiSalvo under the names Weite and delving. The reincorporation sees Elder integrating not only some truly finger-twisting passages, liable to slip under your nose given their commanding control of groove, but also more elaborate electronics and synthesizer work calling to mind the beds of keyboards Rick Wakeman and Tony Banks once wielded. The result continues Elder’s perpetual climb in quality, underscoring the fact that we really haven’t seen the limits of their capabilities yet.
Opener “Sigil to Ruin” stands as the best track of the bunch, showcasing post-rock dynamics gained via DiSalvo’s time producing purely instrumental music, a killer driving set of grooves, an odd-time riff articulated exactly the way Chris Squire and Steve Howe would, and sunny alternative rock vocals that show the exceptionally earned confidence of the band. If the diptych of Omens and Innate Passage saw the band attempting to interpolate the dynamics and vocal timbres of alt rock into their work, then Through Zero is the fruit, fully shedding heavy metal heft in pursuit of something closer to the sun.
Worth noting as well is the exceptional structure of the record, with each side being a 10-minute epic followed by two (marginally) shorter tracks. Despite their tendency to stretch out in Florian psychedelic splendor, the album never feels bloated or sagging, nor do repetitions or solo passages feel gratuitous and without form. Any long-time psych or prog listener can attest to the difficulty in this, finding a way to balance the necessity of the sonic journey’s complexity against the way it can potentially feel directionless. In their more doom metal-driven days, Elder could excuse themselves some less shaped passages, given that genre’s meditative atmospheric affect. Having fully transitioned to a prog rock band, they’ve both trimmed the fat while also increasing the amount of riffs, variations and recurring motifs, giving us music of the same length but greater complexity, greater propulsion and better, more beautiful hooks to boot. Calling Through Zero the band’s current high water mark feels both obvious and unnecessary; Elder have built a career out of one-upping themselves and given not only the incredible quality shown here but the effortless confidence, it’s not hard to imagine they’ll go and do it again.
Label: Blues Funeral
Year: 2026
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