Eamon The Destroyer – ‘Alternate Piranhas EP’ (2024)
Eamon apparently doesn’t subscribe to the theory that you can’t go home again. More like, if at first you don’t succeed, release the outtakes.
We loved last year’s original ‘We’ll Be Piranhas,’ but Eamon relistened to some of the sessions’ alternate takes and versions and rightly surmised you’d love to hear them too. Hence, the ‘Alternate Piranhas EP,’ featuring fresh stabs of five of the original album’s eight tracks. Think of them as a fly-in-the-studio look into Eamon’s creative process. Then go back and listen to the originals and decide if he got it right the first time or astutely held on to the best…until now. Hey, if it’s good enough for Marc Bolan…! For starters, Eamon describes these tracks as “a little noisier and a little more chaotic than the finished album versions.” So far, so intriguing.
‘The Choirmaster’ is still schizophrenic, navigating from soothing cinematic library music into an overactive adrenaline rush quite like the original version. ‘Rope’ is a little more reflective, with wordless female vocals adding a nice Edda Dell’Orso touch to the Morricone-esque atmosphere, and ‘A Pewter Wolf’ introduces a funereal organ to the mix that adds a haunting aura to an already uncomfortable tale.
‘A Call Coming’ is less aggressive as it dials down the introductory chainsaw backing but retains the paint-peeling guitar shredding just so you know who you’re listening to! Finally, the soft opening to ‘My Stars’ has been upended by another lesson in guitar shredding which continues throughout. I must confess I preferred the “cleaner” original, but the alternate version is longer and omits the lengthy “dead air” silence and brief coda.
But that’s what alternate versions are for – to hear the artist develop a song while listening to possible new directions the original track could have gone in. And with such an intriguing, eclectic artist as Eamon, these diversions and alternate paths are enlightening peeks into an artist in pursuit of perfection in his craft.
Jeff Penczak
Eamon The Destroyer – ‘Alternate Piranhas EP’ (Bearsuit Records, 2024)
