Bull Elephant are an anonymous four-piece act from the UK playing an interesting brand of doom/death with progressive elements that almost sounds like mixing older Elder with Runemagick at their most aggressive. This is the final part of a trilogy apparently about the Bull Elephant fighting against the Nazis in World War II, though I don't have lyrics or prior knowledge of previous albums to confirm if that is just this part or if the entire story is about that. Everything I just said threatens to make this the coolest album conceived in the history of our species, but while there's a lot to like about this release, it has its share of problems.
The opening track, "Expansion From Perceived Reality," is pretty emblematic of what this band is: winding, groovy riffs that occasionally spill over into savage death metal blasting, low growls that trade off with harsh but tuneful clean singing, and song structures that contain a lot of cool ideas that simply don't gel together. The musicianship overall is really strong, with the guitar work often being excellent as it manages to be intricate and hooky at the same time, but the songwriting doesn't have much shape to it, leaving us with songs that lack cohesion and don't so much flow between parts as they do suddenly jerk back and forth before ending without much fanfare or proper resolution. Typically, the band is at its most focused and driven when they get aggressive, as on the charging "Blackened Horizon Chaos," while the more progressive and moody sections are the most interesting and novel, which makes up most of the album but is most notable on longer tracks like "Berlin Falling" and the elephantine closing title track. I really want to love this release, as it has all the pieces it needs to be great, and each piece by itself may well be, but this is a band that really needs to figure out how to properly put them all together.