I’ve been a huge fan of Massachusetts psych-metal outfit Elder from the moment I heard the opening chords of 2017’s Reflections of a Floating World. They combined elements of Black Sabbath’s lurching doom, Kyuss’ sprawling stoner rock, and Rush’s meandering prog in a brilliant package and wrapped it all in a coat of Can’s Krautrock psychedelia. I was powerless to resist it.

Since then, I’ve been searching for copies of their back catalog, and outside of a few high priced copies in Europe, the pickings were slim. But lucky for me, in early 2020, Elder repressed their entire back catalog with the intention of selling them on a world tour. Unlucky for them, that tour was canceled when the pandemic shut the world down. In either case, I have finally acquired their third full length, Lore, which found the band stretching more fully into prog and psychedelic elements. And to incredible success, I might add.

Granted, this album isn’t for everyone. Of the five tracks, only one is shorter than ten minutes. Instead, it clocks in at a tight 9:28! Those extended lengths are achieved through lengthy instrumental passages and meandering structures that shift between time signature and mood on a dime. Each song is a journey, with multiple detours before inevitably returning to the vocal passages. If you don’t have the patience for that, you probably also don’t have the patience for lyrics like, “I was born on the cusp of revelation.”

If you do have the patience for that kind of thing, then this album is for you.

“Compendium” opens the disc with a rapid arpeggio that is soon overtaken by huge guitar riffs coated in fuzz. The opening riff returns throughout the song, aided by a huge hi-hat groove when it does, anchoring the song as it wanders through other rhythms and progressions. That track alone is worth the price of the disc, but the record never lets up. Every song plays like an enormous opus through a psychedelic landscape with the band guiding you along like Gandalf.

The most impressive of these journeys is “Lore,” the album’s fifteen-minute centerpiece. After opening with the heaviest riff on the disc, the band plays through a few verses and choruses before coming to a near halt. Ambient swells take over, and the song builds for a few minutes almost like a post rock track. When the climax finally comes, it is absolutely crushing. The opening riff returns like a vengeful giant and lays waste to the soundscape they just built.

Also worthy of note is closer “Spirit at Aphelion,” which augments the electric-guitar dominated sonic palette of the album with acoustic guitar, electric piano, and Mellotrons. It almost feels like a Kansas track before it shifts into a Kyuss-like sonic exploration.

As someone who has absolutely devoured both Reflections of a Floating World and the proggier Omens and is still left wanting more, finally getting a vinyl copy of Lore is exactly what I needed. People talk about the growth the band showed between this album and Reflections, but if this was where the band peaked, it would have been a great and terrible height. Plus, the colorway of this wax and die-cut jacket with interchangeable sleeves is an absolutely beautiful package.