Hovering between Iceland and the United Kingdom like the plume of ash of the Eyjafjallajökull, the progressive hardcore trio Down I Go recently released an EP by the title of Mortals. Their 2015 full-length, You’re Lucky God, That I Cannot Reach You struck my imagination – and I’m sure many of yours – with just how near perfection and unique it was. I still have shivers when the “Mother in the Pen” theme gets brought back at the end of “The Sending”, it wraps this masterpiece beautifully. Mortals is more akin to one of the band’s other thematic EPs, Gods. It would be, in fact, its conceptual counterpart. While the latter was released all the way back in 2011, its 2017 spiritual successor doesn’t let down. With Down I Go’s more refined and perfected sound, Mortals is enjoyable to the core; the mathy, overdriven riffs, the duality of the vocals, going from hardcore screams to multi-part vocal harmonies many times per song, and the often totally heart-wrenching melodies and structures make this one of their best releases. At under fifteen minutes, it is criminally short, but leaving you craving for more is infinitely more desirable than force-feed you lower quality music. It certainly doesn’t have the same legendary status as Gods or the aforementioned You’re Lucky God, That I Cannot Reach You, but I think that’s just a matter of time before it does. The compositions here boast memorable melodies and lyrics that will, with time, be anchored in your brain. Mortals, heed Mortals, for it is auditory ambrosia.

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