{"id":14885,"date":"2025-04-12T22:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T22:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/14885\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T22:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T22:28:07","slug":"church-of-the-sea-eva-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/14885\/","title":{"rendered":"Church of the Sea – Eva Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u2019ve often thought Adam\u2019s rib-mate, Eve, got a bad rap. Led astray by the pesky serpent, Eve took that first bite of the fruit from the Forbidden Tree and shared it with her man. This act not only resulted in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, but in Eve becoming traditionally branded as the original sinner, who eventually suffered the pains of childbirth as part of God\u2019s consequence. Formed in 2017, and after releasing their debut album Odalisque in 2022, Greek doomgaze trio Church of the Sea<\/strong> has partnered with These Hands Melt to drop sophomore effort Eva, which aims to reimagine the story of Eve, celebrating her defiance and casting her in a different light. One not of sinner, but rebel, who willingly embraced what others consider \u2018forbidden.\u2019 I wondered what form Church of the Sea<\/strong>\u2018s doomgaze would manifest on Eva and whether it would have me reveling in Eve\u2019s now reconstructed rebellion. <\/p>\n

With zero expectations of what doomgaze should sound like, I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere Church of the Sea<\/strong> creates on Eva. Vangelis provides the doom, comprised chiefly of his sparse, spindly, and sometimes spooky guitar lines, while Alex rounds out the gaze of Eva\u2019s instrumentation with subdued, synth-driven darkwave. Melodies undulate like roiling black seas under steel-grey skies, leaving me stranded on Darkher<\/strong><\/a> and REZN<\/strong><\/a>-filled waters, searching for salvation. Trent Reznor-inspired synth beats greet us on the first proper track, \u201cThe Siren\u2019s Choice.\u201d When the spider-like guitar notes and Irene\u2019s sultry, velvety Shirly-Manson-meets-Sara-Bianchin<\/a> vocals enter the fray, we get a glimpse of how powerful the doom of Church of the Sea<\/strong>\u2018s sound can be. This power is undeniable when fuzzy guitar chords coalesce with distorted synths to add heavyweight exclamation points throughout Eva\u2018s thirty-minute runtime, succeeding at creating a hypnotically hazy, drone-like, yet heavily doomy experience. <\/p>\n

\ufeffEva by Church of the Sea<\/a><\/p>\n

Each note on Eva means to satisfy the alpha waves of mind and body like a 432 Hz tone. From the Dead Can Dance<\/strong> meets Vermilia<\/strong> tribalism of \u201cEva,\u201d with Irene\u2019s native Greek vocals establishing a very folk-forward cadence, to the electronica dominant closer \u201cHow to Build a Universe, pt. II,\u201d Eva is full of highlights. None more evident than the three-punch combo that starts with the very Darkher<\/strong>-inspired \u201cWidow,\u201d imbued with \u201cLowly Weep\u201d vibes to the Bloody Hammers<\/strong><\/a>-like spookiness of \u201cGarden of Eden,\u201d where you can almost feel the snaky villain slithering toward our defiant and rebellious heroine. It\u2019s not until the fateful lilts of \u201cChurchyard\u201d enter that the triptych at the apex of Church of the Sea<\/strong>\u2018s Eve story reveals itself, an ebb and flow, tension-packed track full of sanguine beats, ethereal vocals, and hard-hitting doom tones that find Eve defiantly accepting her role as the \u2018mother of all living\u2019 and embracing her newfound knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong>Church of the Sea<\/strong> creates music for certain moods, and Eva is no exception. More lulling than pulse-pounding, Eva\u2019s hazy drone succeeds mostly by staying true to what it is and never attempting to stray from that mission. Songs plod, crawl, and cautiously sense their way through Church of the Sea<\/strong>\u2018s garden of Eva with arachnidic stealth. While stellar in its execution, this fact limits accessibility. This music will not energize you as much as it will have you delving into sub-plateaus of self-inquiry, lazing about in effortlessly created atmospheres. In an age where we admonish bloat and overly long opuses, my biggest quibble is that Eva is not long enough. Minus the two-minute intro, Eva clocks in at a scant twenty-eight minutes, and while I am quick to hit replay, I\u2019m left wanting to hear more of what Church of the Sea <\/strong>has to offer. <\/p>\n

April has been a month that could very well find me flung back into the n00b pit. I\u2019ve stumbled on a string of releases I\u2019ve really connected with. I chose Church of the Sea <\/strong>to diversify the kinds of albums I was grabbing, and much to my chagrin, I fell in love with it. Though short in stature and length, Eva is chock full of quality. Irene\u2019s vocals mesmerize, and the guitar-synth combo is way heavier than it has any right to be. I know there will be albums in my future that I won\u2019t connect with, and I anxiously await their arrival, but Church of the Sea<\/strong>\u2018s album Eva is not one of them. I recommend it fully, and I hope you check it out. <\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: 3.5\/5.0
DR<\/strong>: 6 | Format Reviewed<\/strong>: 320kb\/s mp3
Label<\/strong>: These Hands Melt<\/a>
Websites<\/strong>: Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide<\/strong>: April 11th, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve often thought Adam\u2019s rib-mate, Eve, got a bad rap. Led astray by the pesky serpent, Eve took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[743,10268,10269,10270,10271,10272,10273,10274,77,10275,10276,269,6080,10277,10278,10279,16,15,10280],"class_list":{"0":"post-14885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-743","9":"tag-3-5","10":"tag-apr25","11":"tag-church-of-the-sea","12":"tag-darkher","13":"tag-dead-can-dance","14":"tag-doom-metal","15":"tag-doomgaze","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-eva","18":"tag-greek-metal","19":"tag-music","20":"tag-review","21":"tag-rezn","22":"tag-shoegaze","23":"tag-these-hands-melt","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-vermilia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114327355665848430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}