Bavarian band Eisenhauer are here to flood you with loads of riffs! The band's trade is heavy metal with some other influences. By the way, their name translates to "ice tusk" or "ice fang", like their logo's demonic boar hints.

And one band that Eisenhauer really make me think about is those vikings from icy fjelds of Sweden, namely Grand Magus. The vocals here sound like a mixture of JB Christoffersson from aforementioned GM and Manilla Road's Mark Shelton. Musically with their heavy metal, Eisenhauer mix doom metal (basically Black Sabbath-ish , and not anything like funeral doom etc.) and stoner rock, but also small amount of "attitude stuff", bringing latter era Pantera to my mind. These all happen already during the first minute or so on the opener 'Sail My Soul'. Yes, the song is quite a mishmash, but still it does not stall at any point. Surely, the opener could be a stronger one.

The title track comes next, and things seem to get on track. It is slow/mid-paced heavy/doom metal headbanger with good melody-work. And above all, it features far tighter songwriting when compared to the first song. Now we're talking! The song tells a hilarious story of a guy stealing the horse of Satan's son.

"Oh my God what I've done?
I took the horse from Satan's son."

Believe me, you'll be hollering out that kind of lines when you hear them. This is not anything like a joke song, though, but a cool breezy yet firey piece of heavy metal. Gladly the next song, 'Never Surrender', keeps up the momentum. It continues in vein of the previous one, but is somewhat faster. The band anthem starts with absolutely great riffing, but the verse part isn't that hot. The spirit of NWOBHM can surely be perceived on this closer latter on. The songs are long-ish, and often have some idling on them.

The guitar offer hammering and shredding heavy metal, and also more looser, bluesy stoner rock stuff. Sometimes, the guitars are rather thin, or not crunchy enough. In a word: Ballsless. The vocals could be partly more biting, too, because now they fell a bit lazy at times. However, they are outright manly. The drums pretty powerful and high on the mix with vibrating and buzzing bass guitar. Overall, the production is quite clean, but I miss small details, that would bring some nice roughness to it.

I haven't head the band's debut full-length album 'Never Surrender' from 2013, but cover letter reads, that this is not only for fans of Grand Magus. I bet they got loads of comparison to this Swedish band before. But yes, that's the correct claim about this EP; try it if heavy/doom/stoner metal alloy does titillate you. A promising, but lacking EP; more power needed to really make this horse kick like hell!

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
12/20/2015 12:52